SS ‘ 
SN * IN 


SON SN 
SAS 


. 


Legs 
Ceooere 


ee 
ie 


SALE 
Ls 


ergs 


A 


SAN: 
\ 


es 


o 
S, 


Zp 
yyy 


eee 
Se ee LE 
iggy 


SS 


ee 


LE 


Le 


a 


eee Les Z 
ee Z Bie 
Leg, BEE Le 
(ee oe 


yp 


\ 


\ 


La 


ANS 
WW 


AN 
CW ayKR 
AK 

WS \\ 


NON 
LAYS 


NS 


SS 


NN 
SANS 


. 


peeoes 


ee 


oA 
ee 


SRR SS 
SARE We 


ig, 
ee 
ZA 


Ge 
2. Oe on 

Li ope Re 
Byes 


es 


RRA 


SANA AANSAALS 


oe 
Sip 


tie 
LEE 


(/>* 


s 


Le 








eae 





Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2022 with funding from | 
Princeton Theological Seminary Library 


https://archive.org/details/resurrectionitsiO0down 





THE RESURRECTION 





THE RESURRECTION 


AND ITS IMPLICATIONS 


An examination of the reason why so many 
consider it a thing incredible that 


God should raise the dead. 


By R. M. Downtz, A.B., M.A. 
Author of 
“The Kingdom of Christ, What Is It?” 
“The Marriage of the Dawn” 
Etc. 


We 


Boston 
The Roxburgh Publishing Company 


Inc. 








a 
\ 


iN Copyright, TODA pin 
By The Roxburgh Publishing Company 
All Rights Reserved 


{ —_ vi \ 











FOREWORD 
By T. B. ANpERsoN, D.D. 


The following thesis is a thought-provoking, 
faith-inspiring and heart-comforting discussion of 
one of the cardinal doctrines of our common 
Christian Faith—a doctrine, which, however 
much neglected in the past, has, in these later 
years, seized the imagination and engaged the 
attention of an increasing number of thoughtful 
students of the Bible; viz., the doctrine of the 
Resurrection. 

The title of the book, ‘“The Resurrection and 
Its Implications’, will, at once, appeal to the 
mind of the reader. 

It is an attempt, on the part of a thoughtful 
and conservative layman, to elucidate and set 


forth the truth in a light, different from that in 


8 Preface 


which it is commonly conceived, and to give it an 
interpretation differing radically from that held 
by the great body of Christian believers, as for- 
mulated and set forth in the Creeds of Christen- 
dom. ‘The author is not a destructive, but a 
constructive critic. His aim is not to tear down, 
but to build up; not to weaken, but to strengthen 
the credibility of the Christian faith, He would 
magnify the promised “inheritance of the saints 
in light” by stripping it of the gross and material 
interpretations heretofore placed upon it, and, on 
the contrary, envisaging it in that sublime atmos- 
phere which pervaded all the teachings of the 
Great Resurrector. ‘The author frankly admits 
our inability to see beyond the veil which sepa- 
rates the present and future life, except by that 
light which radiates from the features and reve- 
lations of the Great Light of the Universe. 

He is thoroughly grounded in the doctrines of 
the Christian religion. He believes the Bible from 


Preface 9 


lid to lid. He believes the Scriptural accounts of 
the resurrection of Jesus Christ and of the general 
resurrection of the dead at the last day, and asks 
with the Apostle Paul: “Why should it be thought 
a thing incredible with you, that God should raise 
the dead?” i 
But he dissents from the generally accepted 
view of the nature of the resurrection, and from 
the generally accepted interpretation of the Scrip- 
tures, on which that view is based. He holds— 
and supports his contention by Scripture, science 
and sound argument—that the resurrection body 
is a spirit-body, an unmaterial body, suited to the 
condition and environment of the soul, or person, 
in a spiritual realm, and that identity or essential 
sameness consists in spirit personality, and not in 
mere physical form and structure. He maintains 
that the physical, corruptible body, the habitation 
and instrument of the soul during its earthly 


existence, is not the resurrection body, but, that, 


10 Preface 


at the resurrection, “God giveth it (the soul), a 
body as it pleaseth Him’ to be its habitation and 
instrument in the future heavenly state. 

The author’s aim is, therefore, to combat the 
gross materialism in religion, increasingly preva- 
lent everywhere, and even formulated and pro- 
mulgated in the creeds of Christendom. His pur- 
pose is to lift this blessed doctrine of the resurrec- 
tion of the dead to a higher plain, to ennoble and 
dignify it and give it a setting consonant with the 
other great spiritual doctrines of the Christian 
Faith. 

How far he has succeeded will appear from a 
careful and candid perusal of his thesis, a critical 
study of his interpretation of the Scriptures and 
the arguments he adduces to sustain them. ‘he 
author’s intention is, not to provoke controversy, 
but to evoke a thoughtful consideration of an 
important and vital doctrine of our common 


Christian Faith, the prevalent and almost uni- 


Preface II 


versal conception of which, he conceives to be a 
misconception, based on erroneous interpretations 
of Scripture, ancient and modern. 

The writer of this Foreword believes that the 
author has made a substantial and helpful contri- 
bution toward a better understanding of this 
great subject. His argument is logical and Scrip- 


tural; his conclusions sane, sound, and valid. 


Oe Pie + fe 


ON Pet 





CONTENTS 


rs 


CHAPTER PAGE 
I “Why is It Judged a Thing Incred- 


ible with You that God Should Raise 


tHe ead yeaa crea sisters 15 
‘The. Unmaterial ‘Cosmos®. . 20/230). 23 
ihenlworbodiesy cae even 53 
Like Unto the Angels ........... 70 
The Spirit-Body of Jesus ........ 98 
The New Birth and the Resurrection 125 
The Better Resurrection ......... 146 
Results of Wrong Interpretation of 

thesResurrectiony oa) wce eee ales 160 
The Resurrection and the Return of 

CON TISE Uy tiat OTR Na FAH PRS Oa Tl 197 





CHAPTER ONE 


“Wuy is It JupGrEp A THING INCREDIBLE WITH 
You THAT Gop SHOULD RAISE THE DEAD?” 


In asking this question of King Agrippa, Paul 
propounded a query that has been ringing in the 
ears of the world ever since. It is the test- 
question of the Christian Faith. If the dead rise 
not the Bible is a fiction. 

Agrippa believed the Prophets. ‘Therefore he 
either believed with the Sadducees that there is no 
resurrection, or, with the Pharisees, that there 
may be a return to life of the physical body; but 
in either case he, with those who held with him, 
would not, or could not believe in the resurrec- 
tion as Paul interpreted it. It was too great for 
their grasp. They had not known the risen Christ 
and therefore could not understand Paul. What- 


16 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


ever their prior belief may have been, Paul’s 
startling interpretation of it causes Festus to 
exclaim: “Paul, thou art mad: thy learning is 
turning thee insane!’ It was a stumbling block 
to Agrippa also. 

Agrippa and Festus do not loom alone in their 
incredulity. Of every generation since that has 
heard the Gospel offer there have been multitudes 
who balked at it as being unbelievable. Some, 
recognizing that it lies at the very heart of the 
Christian Faith, and being unable to accept it as 
now taught, have turned a deaf ear to the whole 
truth of Scripture. 

Other multitudes have made a pious pretense 
of believing what their teachers taught them, not 
that they thought it credible, but because they 
felt obliged to believe or be lost. “The momen- 
tum of their belief in Christ’s other teachings 
carry them over what is otherwise intellectually 


ungraspable. Accepting that interpretation placed 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 17 


upon the resurrection by Councils and Creeds they 
pass the matter up as being incomprehensible, and, 
to them, it is really unbelievable. If the doctrine 
of the resurrection, as at present embodied in and 
interpreted by Orthodoxy could be completely 
dissevered from the Christian system of theology 
it would have few if any adherents. 

The assertion that the dust of physical bodies 
of the dead will be reassembled, reorganized as at 
death, reanimated and brought forth alive from 
the grave is not only contrary to all reason and 
observation but is, we believe, also contrary to the 
teaching of Scripture. Not only so but it puts a 
blind of materialism across the only window 
through which an anticipating glimpse of heaven 
may be had. The Christian’s concept of what the 
future world will be certainly is formed from 
what he knows, or imagines he knows, about the 
nature of the resurrection body. If that body is a 


material one, as the Creeds declare the heaven 


18 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


hoped for is a material one, to accommodate it. 
And if that eternal home of the blest is a physical 
one, if Jesus ascended in a physical body to a 
physical heaven, as is so confidently affirmed, his 
return must be in the same kind of body. And if 
these be accepted all his teachings must be inter- 
preted to agree with that doctrine. ‘Therefore 
the nature of the resurrection body, and what is 
believed about it, is a determining factor, if not 
the main interpreting key of the Christian’s belief. 

But since the resurrection is the great central 
integrating fact of Christianity it cannot be thus 
severed from it. Without it hope and confidence 
toward Christ is, as Paul said, vain. No goal is 
left. And for this very reason a mistake here 
holds unmeasured potency for error. ‘Thus we 
believe that wrong interpretations made in the 
distant past, and reafirmed by passing generations 


of leaders of Christian thought have all but ob- 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 19 


scured the outbounding import of that message of 
the First Risen,— 

“I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE.” 

Our purpose is to reexamine, in the light of the 
Scriptures, common sense, and Science these an- 
cient interpretations. Frankly admitting that 
there is a phase of this great subject to which 
human reasoning does not reach, and with which 
the investigations of Science therefore cannot deal, 
it still is true that the human mind cannot, under 
the guise of faith or anything else, accept con- 
tradictions. It is not made so it can do so, nor 
does God ask it. “The subject we are discussing 
does not demand it. And as we pass along we 
shall see how these ancient interpretations, instead 
of commending the Christian Faith as the most 
reasonable thing in the world have raised hurdles 
in its path. 

Recently fifty-five hundred of the leading scien- 


tists of America were, through a questionnaire, 


20 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


asked for their views on the subject of the resur- 
rection. More than half of them utterly dis- 
owned belief in it. And with it, we may presume, 
belief in the immortality of the soul. Many of 
these are leading professors in our Colleges and 
Universities. They are wrong, of course, but we 
believe that they have been betrayed in their 
thinking to a false starting premise, namely—that 
any conception whatever of a resurrection neces- 
sarily implies the return to life of the same 
physical bodies which are buried. ‘They are not 
unbelievers from choice, but because the scien- 
tific mind cannot straddle contradictions. And 
since Orthodoxy in turn postulates its whole belief 
in immortality upon its assertion that the physical 
“bodies of believers do rest in their graves until 
the resurrection,” to be then reunited to the souls 
which formerly occupied them, the discrediting of 
the foundation invites disbelief in all that is built 


upon it. 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 21 


The physical body is a conscious physical fact, 
and facts are very stubborn things. Science opens 
the sealed tombs of the dead, or it analyses the 
ashes of the crematory, and finds there no body, 
often not even dust, and therefore refuses to 
believe in the asserted or implied continuing ex- 
istence of what no longer actually exists. Not 
even God can bring owt of a grave anything that 
is not at the time in it, nor a clean thing out of 
an unclean. ‘True He could, at the instant create 
an entirely new body, but this would not be the 
body that was originally buried, nor would this 
accord with the commonly accepted theory that 
“the selfsame bodies of the dead which were laid 
in the grave, being then again united to their souls 
forever, shall be raised up by the power of 
Christ.” (See Westminster Confession of Faith 
Q. 87 Larger Catechism). 

Paul, in explaining the resurrection, used illus- 


trative analogies, drawn from nature and natural 


22 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


processes. He even went so far as to character- 
ize as a “fool” one who had not before observed 
these natural processes and their resurrection les-. 
son. He thus sets wide open the door for the 
examination of this intensely interesting and im- 


portant subject. 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 23 


CHAPTER TWO 


THE UNMATERIAL Cosmos 


In Paul’s day there were Christians in the 
Corinthian Church who stumbled at the doctrine 
of a future resurrection, and, because they could 
not conceive it possible, they denied that there 
will be any such thing. 

Among those who have heard the Gospel mes- 
sage there are still multitudes of the same kind of 
people. ‘They cannot conceive of the resurrection 
of a physical body centuries -after it has been 
reduced to ashes or turned to scattered dust. 
Therefore they dismiss the whole question, just as 
did some of the Corinthians in Paul’s day, by 
asking what they consider an unanswerable ques- 


tion,— 


24 The Resurrection and [ts Implications 


“With what manner of body do they come?” 

When that question was put to Paul he pro- 
ceeded to answer and illustrate it. The follow- 
ing pages are a layman’s attempt to make a little 
clearer what we believe Paul taught. Paul 
founded his teaching directly upon that of Jesus, 
the only sure guide that we have. 

Jesus told His hearers that the sons of the 
resurrection will be “like unto” or “equal unto the 
angels.” There is no hint in Scripture that these 
wonderful beings either exist in a disembodied 
state, or that, on the other hand, they have bodies 
of flesh like mortals. 

However, they are always represented as pos- 
sessing something which localizes them as to place, 
that segregates them from other spirits, and from 
each other. “They exist as distinct persons. “That 
certain something, since it is not of a physical 
composition must be of spirit essence. 


Paul implies that it is even possible for a soul 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 25 


or spirit to exist in a disembodied state, but also 
that such a condition of nakedness is far from 
desirable. After His death Jesus went in a physi- 
cally disembodied form to preach to like disem- 
bodied spirits in prison, His physical remains being 
then in Joseph’s tomb. At death there is thus a 
like complete separation between the soul and that 
body to which it belonged. To quote Paul :— 
“For in this we groan, longing to be clothed 
upon with our habitation which 1s frem heaven: 
if so be that being clothed we shall not be found 
naked. ) 
“For indeed we that are in this bodily frame 
do groan, being burdened in that we would not 
be unclothed, but would be clothed upon, that 
what is mortal may be swallowed up of life. 
Now He that wrought us for this very thing 1s 
God, who gave unto us the earnest (foretaste, 
pledge), of the Spirit.” (II Cor. 5:2). 


As we understand these inspired words the 
spirit thus given is an “earnest”? or sample of 


what that clothing “of life’ will be, for He is 


26 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


not here discussing the soul itself but its future 
garment, or “house.” He would also assure us 
that God is fully equal to furnishing such a 
“house from heaven,’’—one ‘“‘not made with hands, 
eternal.” In any case he is writing of something 
separable and distinct from, yet habitable by, a 
soul. He is rejoicing, moreover, that God made 
us after such a pattern that this physical body of 
destroyable flesh, when the soul is done with it, 
can be dropped, as the larva might drop its im- 
prisoning shell, in order to take to itself another 
vestment. 

But can we indeed, conceive of such a thing as 
an “immaterial body’? An organized function- 
ing thing of co-ordinated members and parts? 
The name we give to jt matters nothing. We 
may call it a ‘‘body’, a ‘‘garment’’, or a “house” 
or a “tent’’, but we mean that outer, objective, 
separable thing whose presence makes any other 


such covering, domicile or ‘‘tabernacle”’ wholly 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 27 


superfluous and burdensome. Interpreters of the 
Scripture have rashly assumed that no such thing 
is possible, and that the resurrected human per- 
sonality therefore cannot be even conceived of 
apart from a material body of some sort. In 
another chapter we shall further discuss this, but 
before replying directly—let us examine some 
common and well known natural, or scientifically 
produced phenomena. But we do not here in- 
stance these for the purpose of indicating the iden- 
tical composition of the resurrected body. Paul 
seemingly could not do this, and why should we 
attempt any such thing. Our purpose here is 
merely to prove that there are functioning organ- 
isms, or bodies, well known to us, that have none 
of the properties of matter whatever, and, this 
fact recognized, a strong presumption is thereby 
established that there may be spirit-bodies, like- 


wise devoid of every semblance and property of 


28 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


that inert and lifeless thing we know as the 
material. 

Charles Kassel (in the North American Review 
for Oct., 1922) says:— 

“Tt is a singular truth, and one highly signifi- 
cant, that the more nearly Science, in its triumphs 
over nature, has approached to that unseen, un- 
material world, the more powerful have been the 
forces that revealed themselves. It is of no small 
importance that the most tremendous of these 
energies should come from a region of the Uni- 
verse hidden from the senses. It was with the 
discovery and utilization of electricity that Science 
seemed to pierce beyond the material into a New 
Universe. Here was a force, apparently inex- 
haustible, coming seemingly from nowhere, and 
the nature of which defied all analysis. ‘The 
savants found themselves baffled in every attempt 
to explain the phenomena in terms of matter. 


Science believed this new force to be the last that 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 29 


remained for discovery. No Scientist appears to 
have then felt the tremendous truth, just dawn- 
ing upon the world, that we had but touched the 
fringe of an inner world of energy, out of which 
electricity, and perhaps many other of our (now) 
known forces play as perennial fountains, and 
that farther within were resources of power be- 
side which steam and electricity were mere toys.” 

The doors of that unseen, immaterial Universe 
are now opening wider to us every day the sun 
rises. It is a Universe where everyone of our five 
material senses, through which we _ heretofore 
gained all self-consciousness and knowledge, are 
numb and dumb. Matter is now seen to be 
nothing except a temporary means of reflecting 
back to and through our material senses the light, 
forces, and facts of a great supersensual world 
that exists beyond. To such a world the resur- 


rection, as Jesus illustrated and Paul preached it, | 


30 ©The Resurrection and Its Implications 


will introduce us and we shall have bodies and 
senses to fit us for its enjoyment. 

Until within a dozen years both the scientific 
and the religious world held that “all matter is 
indestructible.’ Both thought that this theory 
had been so completely proven that to dispute it 
was proof of ignorance. If a material thing 
existed, as for instance a human body, it must, im 
some form or element endure eternally. 

The mistake underlying this assumed basis of 
reasoning was that the major premise of it was 
false, and, as has now been proved, was and is a 
pure fiction. Matter is not indestructible. Vari- 
ous kinds of it have been, as matter, we are now 
told, completely annihilated and there is no cer- 
tainty that any material substance or thing known 
to man may not, as matter, be completely unmade, 
and resolved back to that nothingness of which 


God made it in the beginning. 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 31 


‘That eminent scientist M. L. Poncaire, in T’he 
New Physics, says: 


‘“We shall have to abandon the idea, so instinc- 
tively dear to us, that matter is the most stable 
thing in the universe, and admit, on the contrary, 
that all bodies whatever are a kind of explosive, 
decomposing with extreme slowness.” 


Also, Dr. R. K. Duncan, in his late interesting 
book, The New Knowledge, says: 


““Matter has disappeared as a fundamental 
existence, or at any rate it is explained as (mere- 
ly) a manifestation of electricity. Mass, a here- 
tofore supposedly indestructible thing, has dis- 
appeared with matter, and comes into existence 
purely as negative electricity.” 


Charles Kassel (quoted above), says in his dis- 


cussion of that unmaterial thing, ether: 


“Tt is this ether, which we have never beheld, 
which no instrument has ever explored, and which 
gives to our touch never a sign of its presence, 
that becomes the fundamental reality.” 


32 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


Matter thus becomes merely the expression of 
an antecedent untouchable, uwnmaterial energy. 
We believe that God is the source of it, for there 
can be found no other sufficient one, and he is 
Spirit only. 

Science is thus at least finding room in an 
incorruptible supersensual world for the doctrine 
of immortality. ‘The doctrine of immortality 
therefore has ceased to be (to science) the hostile 
or indifferent thing it once was. On the con- 
trary it might almost seem that the theory of a 
universe of fine and infinitely more potent sub- 
stance is almost ready to be announced by our 
scientific thinkers, as the inevitable conclusion 
from recent discoveries” (Charles Kassel in article 
above referred to). | 

In thus asserting that material things have no 
fixed existence or form, science is but lending 
plausibility to the Scriptural teaching that all 


things were originally made out of nothing. It is 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 33 


but discovering that material things are returnable 
to their source. “This is but another instance of 
the great general truth, that, correctly inter- 
preted, Revelation and correct scientific deduc- 
tions are never in conflict. In all spheres to 
which both relate the statements of the former 
are eventually probated by the deductions of the 
latter. “The same God is the author of both and 
therefore there can be no ultimate disagreement. 
Religious dogma, however, has often been obliged 
to modify itself in the presence of Scientific de- 
ductions and it is now the turn of Science to admit 
that its basic theory of physics was all wrong. 
The mysteries of the spiritual world and those of 
that supersensual Universe, which Science now 
freely admits, are but different avenues of ap- 
proach to what may, in the end, be the same thing. 
If Science recognizes such a thing as non-material 


bodies, and a non-material Universe, it but cre- 


34 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


ates a presumption that the same thing exists in 
the spirit realm. 

The past few decades have put into the hands 
of men, as never before, the means of exploring 
far beyond the reach of their senses. The tele- 
scope, the microscope, the spectrum, the Réntgen 
Ray, the Hertzian wave of Marconi, the radio- 
active transformations of Curie, Becquerel, Ruth- 
erford and Soddy, Ramsey and Crooks have 
opened our eyes toa world heretofore unsuspected. 
Professor Frederick Soddy, speaking at that time 
about Radium, says: 

“Had anyone, twelve years ago, ventured to 
predict Radium he would have been told that 
such a thing was not only wildly improbable but 
actually opposed to all the established principles 
of the science of matter and energy.” 

In words which were perhaps far wiser than 
he knew Carlyle said that material things are 


“the time-vesture of the Eternal.” 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 35 


The Ancients divided all material elements into 
three classes, earth, air, and water. Later the 
laboratory found that that analysis would not 
answer because that each of these supposedly 
prime elements included innumerable elements 
common to the others. “This investigation con- 
tinued until the “Atom” was discovered. “Then 
the atomic theory was in turn shattered by the 
discovery of a still more minute’ subdivision, the 
“electron.”’ One writer in comparing the electron 
with the atom says that in size it is like a buzzing 
fly in a barn and that even in the hardest sub- 
stances it is charged with ever-active physical 
energy within the atom like a bounding bullet in 
an otherwise empty gourd. 

Thus all previously accepted theories about the 
composition of material substances have been ex- 
ploded. And with every advance of the explorer 
new and inerasable marks of the Great Origina- 


tor’s fingers are found, revealing the unfathomable 


36 «©The Resurrection and Its Implications 


finesse of the Creator’s Art. No human investi- 
gator can say that he has read all that is written 
even in a stone. It is not wonderful therefore 
that as men continue to explore further within 
the labyrinthine mysteries of the material crea- 
tion they must from time to time retrace, retract 
and revise. 

It is thus indicated that physical energy, the 
Prime Mover of the physical Universe, is not at 
all inherent in physical things. ‘Power to Al- 
mighty God alone doth appertain.” In its last 
analysis its dynamo is located in the spirit realm, 
and its manifestations in stream, plant and planet 
are but the wires by which it is conveyed to the 
eyes, touch and uses of men. 

We are only beginning to discover the tremen- 
dous amount of energy existing in and conserved 
by the material world. Dr. R. K. Duncan says 
(Harpers Magazine), “There is enough radiant 


energy in one ounce of radium to lift 10,000 tons 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 377 


one mile high. ‘This is a tremendous fact, deter- 
mined by experiment and quite apart from any 
theory.” Also, as showing the extent to which, 
all unconsciously to us who move among them, 
force is located in and conserved by material 
things, Le Bon, an eminent French scientist, in 
an article in the Independent, says: 

“The fifth part of an American (nickel) five- 
cent piece, if we could entirely disassociate it (its 


atomic element), in one second would give an 
energy equal to 6,800,000,000 horse power.” 


Sir Oliver Lodge, erroneously conceiving of 
ether as the prime source of energy, however, 
says: 

“Every cubic millimeter of space (a cube of 
about 1/25 of an inch) possesses what, if it were 
matter, would be a mass of a thousand tons and 


an energy equivalent to the output of a million 
horse power station for 40,000,000 years.”’ 


These things give us a new conception of the 


38 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


phrase “ALMIGHTY GOD”. They give us 
a concept of the unseen universe wherein He 
moves and of which He is the great CREATOR 
and great PRIME MOVER. He is not only a 
pure Spirit but he is purely spirit. If in the resur- 
rection men are to come into His likeness and are 
to partake of His nature, how utterly absurd it 1s 
to think of them as being “‘burdened”’ (as Paul put 
it) with a body of lifeless clay. Where he speaks 
of “the power of His resurrection”, he is not 
talking about any academic or mystical thing, but 
of a something as real as the force which brings 
a plant out of an invisible germ or a sequoia out 
of a seed. 

The radio by means of which we hear, in our 
closed rooms, a speaker or a singer fifteen hun- 
dred miles away, proves the existence of a non- 
material body of ether which permeates all physi- 
cal substance and walls as freely as if they had no 


existence whatever. The ether-waves, set in mo- 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 39 


tion by a mere human voice and electrically mag- 
nified, are doing things exactly similar with what 
Jesus did when He, in His resurrected body, en- 
tered the upper room, ‘“‘the doors being shut.” 
The ether in its motion or movement, in wave or 
volume, knows no such thing as matter in its path. 
To it matter, be it wall or cloud or mountain, 
miles thick, does not exist. Yet the presence of it 
there is as proveable as that of air, water or soil. 
To it there is no such thing as a physical obstruc- 
tion. Neither is there to it any such thing as a 
vacuum. The electric-light bulb, from which 
every particle of air has been taken, contains no 
material thing except the incandescent filament; 
yet that bulb is full of ether, the waves of which, 
set in motion by the electric current on the fila- 
ment, pass through the glass in every direction as 
freely as though it were not there. 

Aind, in passing, here is a most wonderful 
analogy. Jesus called Himself “The Light of the 


40 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


World.” John 8:12, and 9:5, etc. And that 
this was much more than a mere figure of speech 
is proven by the circumstances under which he 
used the words. Light involves no material sub- 
stance. While it has many of the functions and 
qualities that we ascribe to physical masses and 
bodies, no one can weigh or define it. It is one of 
those glowing mysteries within which Christ the 
resurrected God-man hides himself. It is an out 
flashing from that unmaterial world, the reality 
of whose existence He came to prove,—and to 
pilot us to it. 

Past my door runs a heavy copper wire. Upon 
it rests undisturbed a dozen sparrows. ‘To them 
it is merely a perch. I in turn examine it with 
each of my physical senses. Standing upon an 
insulated ladder I can see upon it nothing, hear 
nothing, feel nothing, taste nothing and smell 
nothing. Is there then no “body” of anything 
there? By and by along comes a car which re- 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 41 


quires a motive force equal to that of one hundred 
horses, physically propelled by what is on that 
wire. ‘The lamps in the car are lighted from the 
same invisible, silent, unfeelable, tasteless and 
odorless unmaterial source of energy. Is there 
then no “body” of anything upon that wire? 

I take the storage battery of my radio to a 
charging station. “The attendant tells me it is 
empty of all energy. He charges it and charges 
me a fee. “Then I place the battery upon the 
counter scales and find that it weighs not one 
pennyweight more than before, yet he proves to 
me that into its iron, lead and liquid body he has 
forced an unmaterial substance or body. The size 
of this body, for which I pay, is in a sense circum- 
scribed by the container but it is not measured by 
its length, breadth or bulk. 

Is that inducted body of energy a myth or 
fiction? While I know that that body is as de- 


void of material substance as anything that can be 


42 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


conceived of, yet I know also that it is as real as 
if it were made of granite or steel. 

Again, I let a sun-beam fall upon a dense block 
of ice,—a foot thick. The ice is in no way af- 
fected. Beyond the block I hold a lens which 
concentrates its heat rays upon dry cotton, and a 
blaze results. “Those rays have traveled 93 mil- 
lion miles through space so cold that no organic 
life can exist. “They came straight, and passed 
through the ice upon an unseen bridge. No 
material substance has passed through the ice, yet 
a positive and undeniable physical fact develops. 
‘The cotton is burned. 

My radio is in a closed room, with all windows 
and doors shut. On the ceiling are a few lengths 
of copper wire. I put the receiver to my ear and 
I hear distinctly a man talking from a point a 
thousand miles away. I can hear him breathing. 
I hear him say that he has just heard from the 


outskirts of his audience, in Alaska, Ontario, 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 43 


Georgia, Texas and California. What is that 
thing which has instantly and simultaneously car- 
ried his words to every inch of space within ten 
million cubic miles, over mountain, lake, plain, 
storm and rumbling city, and into a thousand 
houses whose walls may be concrete and steel, or 
to the ears of miners a thousand fathoms beneath 
the surface of the ground? 

From that inner sphere of unmaterial energy 
we might instance other forces just as wonderful, 
such as attraction, repulsion, inertia, and momen- 
tum, but let these suffice. In its study of these 
the scientific mind has laboriously erected its an- 
tennz upon the shores of a vast, unseen, Un- 
material Cosmos and it is now almost daily adding 
proofs of its unplumbed possibilities. None of 
these forces are subject to the mutations and de- 
struction common to all material things. Its laws 
are, so far as men are concerned, self-enforcing, 


as though Omnipresent Omnipotence stood be- 


44. The Resurrection and Its Implications 


hind every one of them. ‘There is no room here 
for that grotesque theory of creation, Evolution. 
It is the outer court of that New Heaven and 
New Earth which the greatest of all prophets saw 
as the dwelling place of the sons of the resurrec- 
tion. It will not necessarily be devoid of physical 
things but it will be completely under the feet of 
forces which do not emanate from or reside in the 
physical. If we conceive of it under the figure of 
a “Garden” it will have an unfenced Tree of 
Life but no Tree of the Knowledge of Good and 
Evil. All those physical temptations, of a thou- 
sand names, which have arisen out of bondage to 
material things, material appetites and _ bodies, 
will have been left in the earth, that physical 
world toward which they have ever drawn the 
“carnal” man. ‘They will have died for want of 
a soil out of which to grow, or a tinder upon 


which the flames of sinful desire may fasten. All 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 45 


things will have been made new, including the 
tabernacle of the Soul. 

The soul of the new man, created after the 
likeness of the soul of Christ Jesus will be clothed 
with a newly created body from heaven, perfectly 
fitted to its deathless tenant; and that body will 
be like that of the risen Jesus, the first man of a 
new race, the body He resumed on the resurrec- 
tion morning, incorruptible, celestial, eternal. It 
was an apprehension of this which made the hope 
of the resurrection the center and substance of all 
Paul’s preaching and writing. 

The “signs” and “miracles”? which Jesus per- 
formed after His resurrection differ greatly in 
purpose and teaching— intent from those He 
worked during the days of His flesh. He was 
now become the personal exponent and the ex- 
amplar of the resurrected life. “Things he now 
did were signs that He had moved up to a new 


estate, into a new house. ‘Their purpose was to 


46 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


show the powers which He now possessed and 
therefore the triumphs which await those who 
shall be transfigured by the great miracle of a 
similar resurrection. 

In the days of His flesh He had astonished His 
disciples by turning water into wine, walking on 
the water, exorcising demons by a word, multiply- 
ing loaves and fishes, and otherwise manipulating 
material objects with which all were very familiar. 
True He also performed supernatural acts but 
He introduced no new elements, properties or 
uses of these things. While He then short-cir- 
cuited natural processes He did not annul any of 
the laws of nature, nor did He introduce any 
contradictions of them. ‘The natural method of 
turning water into wine by way of the vine and 
cluster still remained. Bread was still to be in- 
creased by planting barley. And all the natural 


laws of physical change, growth, decay and even 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 47 


physical death remained exactly as they were 
before. 

Those former miracles also proved His divinity 
and showed that He possessed absolute power 
over the material world. ‘They further showed 
that all such forces as energy, gravitation and 
chemical action are not at all resident in the 
physical, but in the psychical. In a word, He 
showed that “all power belongs to God.’ Physi- 
cal things are merely the means which God uses 
to convey to material beings such as we are a 
sense of what is wholly and essentially unmaterial, 
—such things as energy, affinity, repulsion, den- 
sity, luminosity and inertia, things which have no 
physical origin or fixed inherence whatever. 

Unconsciously influenced by the underlying 
philosophy of Christ’s ultimate teaching the scien- 
tific mind is now gradually arriving at the true 
theory of physics. Physical things, things which 


can be seen and handled are more or less tempo- 


48 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


ral, and pass with their using, but the unmaterial, 
the essential, the dynamic, alone are eternal. Mat- 
ter is merely an expression of unmaterial energy. 
This energy, like the electricity with which a 
cloud is charged, resides in the hand of the Om- 
nipotent God and at His will may take any form 
of creative or destructive potency which he de- 
sires. But after His resurrection, when the days 
of His flesh were ended, Jesus ascended to a 
higher realm. ‘There He called into play things 
which were entirely new to His disciples. He led 
them as it were to the shores of a Spirit Cosmos, a 
new state of being, and by His Spirit gave them 
a glimpse of the wonders of a Creation entirely 
new to them. 

Jesus afterward said: “Behold, I make all 
things new,” including a new heaven and a new 
earth. This promise has, primarily, a “spiritual” 
signification but its meaning has been “spritual- 


ized” until the real import of it is now all but 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 49 


lost. “This New Creation is no less substantial or 
real than the one to which Adam and Eve were 
introduced. It is the house of ampler mansions 
being made ready for the race of the resurrected, 
just as the Garden of Eden was prepared for 
Adam and his posterity; and to the disciples of 
Jesus this new Creation was just as novel and 
strange as was the Garden of Eden to Adam and 
I’ve when they first opened their eyes upon it. 
But none except the twice-born among the 
associates of Jesus could see or apprehend this 
new Cosmos, this new Kingdom, the Kingdom of 
the heavenly world,—this realm of the risen. 
Some of the disciples had once questioned Jesus 
on this curious point,—viz., how it could be that 
He could reveal himself to them and yet not to 
others about them. Now that He was risen the 
time had come when He could measurably ex- 


plain and exemplify what He then meant. The 


50 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


“signs” which He now performed were demon- 
strations of the truth of His words. 

Prior to His resurrection the performance of 
these latter miracles would have only mystified 
and confused them to no profit. They could not 
have then understood them or their import. Lack- 
ing the impersonation of that resurrected body 
and life, which Jesus now manifested to them, 
they could not have sensed His meaning at all. 
‘Tney had no eyes to see, no ears to hear and no 
sense that could be touched by the facts of that 
new world. 

But now that the Son of Man was himself 
passed over to that new spirit-world, and now 
that He, among other things possessed a spirit-- 
body it became possible for him to teach things 
about it to His disciples. “They had now eyes 
that He could open, yet He must do this in such 
a way as not to mislead His pupils in regard to 


other things. He must needs maintain clearly 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 51 


His complete and perfect identification as the 
very same Person who was born of Mary, who 
had lived in the flesh, had suffered all its humilia- 
tions, and had died upon its cross. “To lose this 
identity would have been to make void all that 
He had hitherto accomplished. He must not 
prove too much or too little. He was now the 
very same Son of Man, but transfigured. He had 
accomplished that “exodus” at Jerusalem. Indeed 
He was more than this. He now impersonated 
transfigured Humanity. Surely no other teach- 
er ever undertook such a difficult task. Mere 
words would not convey the truth. It must be 
dramatized, visualized, actualized to a complete 
demonstration. Such were the great purposes of 
all His after-resurrection “‘signs’’. 

Hence we find Him now visible and in the 
same instant invisible; now touchable and _ in- 
stantly untouchable; now entering a closed room 


like a spirit yet presently eating a piece of broiled 


52 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


fish or a honey comb: now exhibiting the mortal 
wounds of His body and now vanishing without 
leaving so much as a trace of His presence, or an 
indication of where He came from or whither He 
went. During the days of His flesh His clothes 
were the labored product of the distaff and loom 
but now even His garments were produced or in 
turn annihilated at a wish. Dominion over all 
things visible and invisible was now come into the 
hands of the Son of Man, the First-born, the 


Adam of a new race. 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 53 


CHAT TERY VAREE 


THE Two Boptes 


Paul speaks of two distinct bodies. “It is sown 
a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If 
there is a natural body there is also a spiritual 
body.” (I Cor. 15:44). ‘Again He says, ‘‘Be- 
ing therefore always of good courage, and know- 
ing, that while we are at home in the body we 
are absent from the Lord . . . we are willing to 
be absent from the body and to be at home with 
the Lord . . . Wherefore we henceforth know 
no man after the flesh: even though we have 
known Christ Jesus after the flesh, yet now we 
know him so no more.” (II Cor. 5, and marginal 


readings. ) 


54. The Resurrection and Its Implications 


In this passage Paul is not writing about the 
soul, which of course is the more important, but 
is discussing the house “the outer man,” the taber- 
nacle, the clothing of that soul, and this in the 
future state. He hints at the presence of a per- 
sonality that could be “naked” or “unclothed”’ 
showing conclusively that he was not here writ- 
ing about the personality itself but about some- 
thing distinct and separable from it, its garment. 
Jesus went, during his grave days, to preach to 
“spirits in prison,” as we have before noted. Con- 
ceivably these spirits were also unclothed persons 
awaiting their resurrection garments. He would 
announce to them the good news that the death- 
penalty was now paid, and it is even conceivable 
that those to whom He preached formed the com- 
pany of saints that came forth at His own resur- 
rection some hours later. Paul, when writing to 
the Corinthians, is looking forward, with present 


hope, longing and groaning to a time when his 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 55 


soul will no longer be hampered and afflicted by 
a “bodily frame” but will be clothed with some- 
thing which will take the place of and serve the 
same purpose as his then occupied body of flesh. 
For substance he thanks God that his soul will 
not always be obliged to live in a house that 
stands as a bar to closer communion with Christ. 
Neither will his soul go naked, or houseless, but 
will be clothed with a vestment that will suit and 
conduce to that closer fellowship. 

And here we would call attention to the pledge, 
the “earnest” or sample, that shows what that 
new house or clothing will be. ‘This earnest, he 
says, is nothing other and nothing else than the 
Spirit of God. That Spirit is not here an earnest 
of the kind of spirits the redeemed will have, but 
an earnest of the kind of body those souls will 
then be clothed with. The gift of the Holy 
Spirit certainly is a pledge or sample of what our 


spirits will be like in the future world, but this is 


56 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


not at all what Paul is writing about. He is dis- 
cussing the clothing, the house, the tabernacle 
with which our spirits will be garmented in eter- 
nity. The gift of the Holy Spirit therefore not 
only implies a regeneration of the soul but is also 
a pledge and an indication of what the “wedding 
garment’ of that soul will be. It shows us some- 
thing of what it means to be baptized in or into 
the Holy Spirit. It is no wonder then that Paul 
exclaims: “If any man be in Christ he is a new 
creature,’ out and out, not an old one patched 
up. Even the clothes are new. “Old things are 
passed away: behold they are become new.” (II 
Cor. 3:17). And while it may be difficult to thus 
take into our consciousness the sense of a spirit- 
body, and while this may have been just as diffi- 
cult for Paul, he believed it, and adds: “All 
things are of God.” God is equal to this promise. 


In the regeneration the soul is born anew, and in 


Ap 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 57 


the resurrection it is given a new body, a new 
kind of body to suit it. 

The soul may therefore be domiciled, con- 
secutively in at least two kinds of body, one of 
which, the first, may be a natural, “earthy”, body 
of flesh, blood and bones, like that which Adam 
had; the other is a spirit-body, a body similar in 
nature to that which belonged to Christ long 
ages before His incarnation and which He re- 
sumed at His resurrection. And after placing 
the two bodies in the sharpest possible contrast by 
several similitudes and illustrations Paul asstres 
us that just as we have borne the image of the 
First Adam we will, in the resurrection, bear 
the image of the heavenly, Second Adam. Paul 
in throwing these two into contrast says: “The 
first Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam 
a Life-giving Spirit.” (I Cor. 15:45). 

Adam’s body was made out of literal dust from 


the literal earth,—of red earth, as the name 


58 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


signifies. About one tenth of it, chemically and 
by weight, was solids, such as lime, carbon, etc., 
the other nine tenths was water. Someone has 
estimated that such a human body, reduced to its 
prime elements would be worth about fifty cents. 
It gains its value only and solely from the fact 
that for the time being it is locally associated with 
and houses the spirit. When that spirit leaves it 
it is no more sacred or valuable than the elements 
of which it was originally made. ‘This is the 
“natural” body Paul speaks of. 

Adam’s body was the first of its kind. And in 
like manner that in which Jesus appeared on the 
resurrection morning was the very first of a new 
kind to be given to a human being. ‘That body 
was not composed of earth. It could not have 
been chemically analyzed, dissolved, or resolved 
into other elements. In Phil. 3:21, Paul again 
throws these two kinds of body into unmistakable 


contrast, speaking of the former as our “vile 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 59 


body” and of the latter as being in the likeness 
of Christ’s “body of glory.” He was not then 
and we are not here discussing the difference or 
likenesses of the souls or personalities inhabiting 
these different kinds of body, but contrasting only 
the bodies themselves, or the houses in which the 
individual spirits will be housed over yonder. 

To understand Jesus’ post-resurrection body 
and character we must bear in mind that He 
possessed a heavenly or spirit body from all eter- 
nity. Before He was made flesh He manifested 
Himself under various forms and simulations. 
Now it was under the similitude of a cloud which 
hung over the Tabernacle by day and night. 
Through all the wilderness journey it was the 
visible manifestation or localization of His pres- 
ence. Again at various times it took the form of 
a human body, as when he companied with Shad- 
rach, Meshach and Abed-nege in the super-heated 


furnace on the plain of Dura. And there, also, 


60 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


according to Nebuchadnezzer, His appearance, 
as he walked in the midst of the fire, was not only 
like that of His three human companions, but 
also differed in that it was like ‘“‘a son of the 
gods.”’ Isaiah describes it, in another form, as 
nearly as possible in language and figures familiar 
to men. The Prophet Ezekiel saw and described 
it more minutely (Ezek. 1:26), thus :— 

“And above the firmament that was over their 
heads was the likeness of a throne, as the appear- 
ance of a sapphire stone: and upon the likeness 
of the throne was a likeness of the appearance of 
aman upon it above. And I saw as it were glow- 
ing metal, as the appearance of fire within it 
round about, from the appearance of his loins and 
upward: and from the appearance of his loins and 
downward I saw as it were the appearance of fire; 
and there was brightness round about him, as the 
appearance of the likeness of the glory of Jeho- 
vah.” 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 61 


These instances are enough to show that He 
had of old the power to take on a coat of any or 
many colors at will, or any outward form that 
suited His purpose. When he came to earth He 
for a term of thirty-three years took on the form 
of a human being—and became bone of our bones 
and flesh of our flesh. His flesh, bones and blood 
were His “bodily frame,” His house of clay, His 
“natural” body. When it was “dissolved” He 
returned to His house eternal. 

At His resurrection therefore Jesus but re- 
sumed his celestial vestment. In it, with added 
glory, He showed Himself to the disciples, the 
women, to Stephen, to Paul. And it is worthy 
of note in passing that the similarity of the vari- 
ous Old Testament descriptions of His bodily 
appearance, as compared with those of His post- 
resurrection appearances in the New, establishes 
the identity of the two beyond question. ‘The 


similarity is particularly striking between that 


62 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


body seen by Ezekiel at the River Chebar, as 
compared with that seen by John on Patmos. It 
was in such forms only that Moses and Elijah 
had known Him in the days of their flesh. And 
doubtless Jesus, on the Mount of Transfiguration, 
purposely resumed for the hour a like form in 
order to show to these prophets that He was in- 
deed, though for the time resident in an humble 
body, the very same Jehovah that they had known 
long ago. 

And Jesus, in that transfiguration scene, may 
have also intended to show to Peter, James and 
John that He possessed the ability to at will step 
out from under the limitations and burden of His 
physical human body,—as Enoch and Elijah had 
been permitted to do. “The subject of discussion 
on the Mount was “‘the exodus (the going out), 
which He was to accomplish in Jerusalem.” Per- 
haps He intended that they would afterward, if 


not immediately, realize that He could renounce 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 63 


the flesh, and could reclothe Himself with His 
heavenly body at will, and that therefore He 
was going voluntarily to that body’s excruciating 
death, for their sakes. He thus showed that, if 
He so desired, and but for His love for men, and 
His continuing regard for the obligation which 
that love had led Him to take, He could have 
escaped the cross and could have returned for all 
time to His former glorious heavenly form. If 
this supposition is true, and we see no reason to 
doubt it, how it must have impressed his heavenly 
visitors. How they must have worshipped Him, 
wondered at His steadfast devotion and loved 
Him the more exceedingly for it. He could not 
of course be true to Himself and turn back, but 
it required a continuing will to face the cross. 
Paul, in the above quotation from his second 
letter to the Corinthians, doubtless to make the 
meaning of his first letter to them more clear and 


impressive, thus draws a further sharp contra- 


64 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


distinction between the two kinds of body. ‘Tak- 
ing the two together we learn that the “natural” 
body, not excepting that of the sinless Christ, was 
appointed to death, the other is not. “The former 
one is a cumbering burden, like the shell from 
which a butterfly might struggle for release. It 
can be “dissolved”. It can thus be taken out of 
the way to make room for one which is not mor- 
tal, and which is not a burden. ‘This latter body 
fits its celestial owner, and is united with it, its 
adornment, its glory, its servant. 

And notwithstanding that death, including the 
death of the physical body, is a part of the fixed 
penalty for sin, Paul sees in the resurrection only 
a divine natural order of advancement upward, 
an advancement which cannot be made except by 
complete releasement from the physical. ‘This 
releasement is accomplished by death. ‘Thus if 
Paul had been here speaking of two garments, one 


of them made of the vilest rags, reeking with all 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 65 


loathsomeness and fatal disease, and the other of 
the most immaculate texture he could not have 
made the distinction more pronounced. He makes 
it clear that both suits cannot be worn at the same 
time. “The rags must be abandoned before the 
heaven-made garment is donned. 

The physical body of Christ was human, and 
only human, and was composed, like ours, of 
decomposable and destroyable flesh. Had this 
not been so He could not have suffered hunger, 
pain and death. If smitten it could quiver. If 
pierced it could bleed. It had to be defended 
against thirst with water, against cold with heat. 
He received it through His human mother. It 
was, of its kind, perfect, and, like the sacrificial 
Passover Lamb, without blemish. But this body 
was given to Him to be sacrificed. It was sacri- 
ficed. It was a part of the world’s sin-offering. 
As our great High Priest He offered it and His 


soul as His complete, His perfect atoning sacri- 


66 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


fice. It was that atonement which had been a 
thousand times, but incompletely, symbolized by 
the carcasses of the Passover and_ sin-offering 
lambs, — which sacrifices were completely de- 
voured, or consumed to ashes. “This was the 
body that was nailed to the cross and was after- 
ward, as lifeless as ashes, placed in Joseph’s tomb. 
When that body was gone there was no target 
left for either divine or human wrath. ‘There 
was nothing more that hatred could do, nothing 
more which justice could demand. His enemies 
as well as God had reached the utmost limit of 
their power. It was His mortal body and as such 
it was buried, “swallowed up” of the grave. 
That which came forth from the tomb could not 
have been smitten or spit upon as was His former 
one, and could no more have been crucified again 
than could a ray of sunlight be nailed to a wall. 

And in the difference between that entombed 
human body of Jesus and that “body of glory” 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 67 


which He resumed on His resurrection morning, 
we learn what the rising from the dead means to 
all believers. It was the first exemplification of 
that difference which had ever been made. ‘The 
difference between the two interprets for us the 
“change” which Paul tells us will, in the twink- 
ling of an eye, take place in those who still are 
physically alive upon the earth at the last day. It 
is the change through which we must all pass 
from our present mortal state in order to attain 
immortality. In the case of Christ, no less than 
in the case of mere humans, that which was born 
of flesh was flesh. Christ’s “body of glory” was 
not so born, for it existed before there was any 
such thing as a human parent. Such a body does 
not mature through a process of birth and growth. 
It is instantly perfect, a gift of God. Neither 
Adam nor Eve were fashioned in a womb, but 
their bodies, full grown, and perfect, were fash- 


ioned by the fingers of God and given to them for 


68 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


instant use. Paul indicates that the resurrected 
will obtain their bodies in the very same way, in 
the twinkling of an eye, by the act of God the 
Creator. 

At the resurrection of Jesus an abyss was fath- 
omed and bridged for the first time. A chasm 
across which no living thing had ever before 
passed had now been spanned, and a highway was 
there built for the untold millions that were to 
follow. Jesus is that Bridge, or Way. He is the 
very personification of it, the Resurrection. 

When the great railroad bridge at St. Louis 
was being built years ago it is said that many men, 
induced by high wages to work under the dan- 
gerous air pressure required in the deep caissons, 
lost their lives. Sometimes when the life of one 
of these workmen was suddenly snuffed out while 
at work at the bottom of the caisson the body was 
thrown into the chute through which the silt was 


being forced out into the river far above. In the 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 69 


strenuous rush of work no account was taken of 
these bodies and many of them were never re- 
covered from the discharged sludge. ‘Thankless 
millions now pass safely over that bridge without 
a thought or even the knowledge of the terrible 
toll in human life that it cost. Jesus planned and 
built an infinitely greater bridge, across an in- 
finitely greater river, toward an infinitely greater 
city, at an infinitely greater cost, for an infinitely 
greater multitude, a bridge that is for all the 
ages proof against all floods, erosion, or corrosion. 
It cannot be destroyed. Millions of Christians 
more or less lightly accept the fact of that High- 
way without any conception of its infinite cost, 
and sometimes almost with a feeling that in ac- 
cepting free passage over it they are doing God a 
favor. And no traveler now returns from the 
bourne beyond it, not even its Builder Himself. 
The return of Jesus will not be a return to the 
flesh, nor in the flesh. 


70 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


CHAP PERT LOUR: 


LIKE UNTO THE ANGELS 


We have two original sources of information 
concerning the resurrection and the resurrection 
body. We find both of these in the Scriptures. 
For although we may draw largely upon nature 
and its analogies for illustration, and for the 
purpose of establishing presumptions, as did Paul, 
yet we must depend finally upon the inspired 
words of Revelation for reliable and exact in- 
formation. Life and immortality and the only 
real knowledge we have of them were brought to 
light by Jesus Christ through the Gospel. Until 
He came neither of these things were or could be 


understood. 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 71 


‘These two sources overlap and are mutually 
interpretative, and must be considered each in the 
light of the other. ‘The first though not the 
greatest of them is what is told us in regard to 
the bodies of angels. The second and greater of 
these sources is the account of the life and actions 
of Jesus during the forty-day period between His 
resurrection and His ascension. During this 
period although His recorded words are very 
few, and although He was visibly present to His 
disciples but a few hours all told, yet the little 
He did and said, when interpreted in the light of 
the Scriptural accounts of angel visits speaks 
volumes. In a double sense the angels roll away 
for us the very great stone from the door of the 
Sepulcher. They introduce Christ the Spirit to 
the world. The many references which Jesus had 
formerly made to the prowess and character of 
the angels aid us now in understanding what He 


himself did during those forty days. 


or 


72 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


We are deeply indebted to the Sadducees for 
their unintentionally calling forth from Jesus that 
specific declaration which throws a flood of light 
upon what the resurrected will be like. He tells 
them that in the future state the redeemed will 
be “equal unto,” or “like unto the angels.” 

We understand this to mean that they will be 
similar to them in nature, have bodies like theirs 
and will be capable of doing what they do. Paul 
tells us that the saints will even be superior to 
them. “Know ye not that we shall judge angels.” 
(Ti @or7623)% 

This declaration of Jesus therefore gives a 
most interesting and far reaching meaning to the 
Biblical story of angelic appearances, visits and 
activities. And the correspondencies, which we 
may notice in passing, between their recorded 
actions and those of Jesus after His resurrection 
enable us to confidently interpret the above pro- 


nouncement. It is the first and only of its kind 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 73 


in the Scriptures, and gives us a key to our 
subject. 

For reasons which Paul clearly indicates the 
Bible contains no direct information as to what 
or where heaven will be. He leaves us to infer 
that it will be more of a condition than of place. 
Jesus could be in heaven while on earth. ‘The 
most we may know about that subject is therefore 
to be gathered from what we will be, or be like, 
rather than where we will be. The angels which 
appeared at various times to men came from 
heaven. ‘Those who appeared at the tomb were 
from heaven. “That was their common residence. 
They are ministering servants who attend upon 
the throne of God in heaven. ‘They had to 
temporarily clothe themselves seemingly with 
garments of earth to get into conscious touch with 
men. ‘They adopted for the time the manners 
and limitations of men in order to be sociable. 


One cannot read the many accounts of their 


74. The Resurrection and [ts Implications 


visits to earth without becoming conscious of this 
fact. Jesus, after His resurrection, did the very 
same thing. He did not eat because He was 
hungry, nor drink with His disciples because He 
was thirsty. He was merely stooping to their 
level of apprehension. 

Let us then recall a few representative exam- 
ples of angelic visits. 

To Abraham. On one occasion three angelic 
persons suddenly appeared to him and his wife. 
Abraham had seen “visions” at various times but 
this was now an actual appearance of human-like 
individuals in the daytime, both he and Sarah 
being wide awake. It was no dream, or mere 
mental apparition. It was not a diorama but a 
literal occurrence, as shown by all the circum- 
stances, and by its connection with and permanent 
effect upon material things. 


The angels appeared and acted like ordinary 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 75 


men,—are in fact referred to as “men” at the 
beginning of the narrative. 

Abraham offered them common human hospi- 
tality—and thereby entertained heavenly visitors 
unawares, as he later discovered. ‘[hey ate of 
the sumptuous repast which he and his wife pre- 
pared for them, just as “men” might have done. 
But one of the three is, later in the narrative, 
called Jehovah, the Christ of both Testaments 
and in eating of Abraham’s dinner he did only 
the like of what He did several times after His 
resurrection. “Therefore his eating and drinking 
with his disciples after His resurrection does not 
prove that He was at this latter time in the flesh 
any more than His eating with Abraham proved 
it. It simply shows that, although a spirit being 
when He dined with Abraham and Sarah, He 
could and did for that passing occasion assume 
all the corporeal appearances and properties of a 


man in the flesh,—just as He afterward did upon 


76 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


ten or a dozen occasions after His resurrection. 
During or after the feast Jehovah delivered to 
Abraham and his wife a most important message, 
and did it in common humanly audible language. 
Sarah, standing back in the tent, overheard it 
and laughed with amusement. She did not know 
that she was actually laughing at the words of 
the Son of God,—so completely did He imperson- > 
ate a man. She was a very matter-of-fact old 
lady as shown by her comment about her own and 
her husband’s ages. She was not at all renowned 
for seeing things that required spiritual insight. 
Abraham and his wife were themselves no more 
substantially or physically present than were, for 
the time, their three visitors. “Their eating and 
drinking proved this. And can we believe that 
these angels needed, on their own account, to 
either bathe their feet, or to eat or drink? On 
the contrary they simply accepted the hospitality 
of Abraham in the friendly spirit in which it was 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 77 


offered. ‘They met him on the level of his own 
life, in physical form, among physical environ- 
ments, in order to leave no doubt in his mind 
then or thereafter of the reality of their presence. 
And doubtless the circumstances of Christ’s visit 
to Abraham afterward came to the minds of His 
disciples as an additional “infallible proof’ that 
He who appeared to them after the resurrection, 
and ate and drank in their presence, was actually 
the Old Testament Jehovah of Abraham’s day, 
as well as the very same Person they had com- 
panied with for three years. Indeed this would 
at the same time prove to them that He was not 
only the same Person, but that their resurrected 
Lord was also showing them what powers they 
in turn would possess by and by. It would at 
once put them in a class with Abraham in un- 
shakable faith. Even though attested by the 
angels all the disciples that first morning “dis- 
believed” that Jesus had risen from the dead. 


78 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


Something, possibly this very story of Christ’s 
visit to Abraham, eame to their mind to convince 
them of the truth, and this would once for all 
convince them also that though Jesus had now 
passed out of the flesh He had taken His sociable 
human nature with Him into that new Realm. 

During or after the meal Abraham discovered 
that two of the “men” were really serving 
angels. Later all four departed on foot like ordi- 
nary travelers, toward Sodom. Jesus at a point 
remained with Abraham, perhaps upon some 
promontory overlooking the Vale of Siddim, and 
held a further conversation. When the confer- 
ence was over the record is that “Jehovah went 
his way,” probably vanishing into invisibility just 
as Jesus at a later time did at Emmaus. 

Upon a previous visit of this same Person to 
Abraham and his wife the record is that at part- 
ing “God went up from Abraham,” probably just 


as Jesus did at His ascension from Olivet. And 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 79 


let us recall in this connection that all through 
His ministry Jesus felt it necessary to impress 
upon His disciples that He was the Jehovah of 
the Old Tetament. He often quoted the prophets 
and Psalms to make this clear, but they would not 
or could not yet believe it. And so it was that, 
after His resurrection, He must needs prove a 
double identity as we have noted—first that He 
was the great Teacher and miracle worker of 
recent months, the One who had chosen the 
disciples, had been crucified to the death, and 
second that He was the very same One who had 
of yore appeared to Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, 
Ezekiel, and others. “Thus in eating with His 
disciples after His resurrection He did just what 
He had done with Abraham long ago, thereby 
removing from the minds of the disciples any 
doubt about His being both the Old Testament 
Jehovah, and the Jesus of Nazareth. And that 


His followers understood this is shown conclu- 


80 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


sively—for a single example—by Stephen’s ser- 





mon (Acts 7:37). 

To Lot. The two angels which left Jehovah 
and Abraham in conversation journeyed on down 
the Vale to Sodom. Meantime Jehovah and 
Abraham had entered into an _ understanding 
which was to determine the conduct of the now 
distant angels in regard to that city. And as a 
side light upon the nature of angels and those like 
them it might be here noticed that without any 
physical means of communication, whatever, such 
as a radio or telephone, they were in instant touch 
with the will and wish of their Lord all the time; 
for otherwise the understanding with Abraham, 
later arrived at, might have miscarried. JHere is 
wireless telephony and the radio anticipated by 
4000 years. 

The angels were received and entertained by 
Lot, at supper, eating a second human meal. ‘The 


people of Sodom mistook them for ordinary way- 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 81 


faring men, and indeed, as such, offered them the 
vilest indignities. Even in these insults there is 
circumstantial proof that there was nothing about 
the clothes, appearances, actions, or words of 
these spirit-beings to indicate to these debauches 
that they were anything more than defenseless 
humans. But that they were not mere men is 
shown by their presently manifested power to 
destroy the city with a motion of the hand, prov- 
ing conclusively that they had temporarily as- 
sumed completely the form and physical appear- 
ances of men merely for the effect it would have 
upon Abraham and Lot. But though spirits they 
had power over physical things, physical power 
greater than any merely human being could exer- 
cise. And this reveals the important truth else- 
where noted that the levers which control and 
manipulate all material things and forces belong, 
not in the physical but in the unseen spirit realm. 


This is one of the great lessons to be drawn from 


82. The Resurrection and Its Implications 


what Moses, without sword or spear, did to 
Egypt in liberating the Hebrews. May it not be 
that in the future world those whom Jesus raises 
up and endows with that new body, life and in- 
telligence, will be able to do with the material 
world things now utterly impossible for them. 
‘They may indeed also then find in this material 
world, and in a million others, endless beauties 
and utilities not now even suspected. 

‘The two angels, after making Lot safe, called 
from the clouds a rain of burning sulphur. A 
large area of country was at their beck turned 
into a seething furnace, simultaneously kindled 
at a thousand places, with heat so fierce that not 
a man, beast or tree was left. It would not do 
to trust sinful emotional men with such powers. 
Witness what they did in the late war; but in 
that sinless warless realm of good will and love 
to which the resurrection will introduce Christ’s 


people it will be impossible for men to abuse such 





The Resurrection and Its Implications 83 


power or the confidence of God. Furthermore 
such destructive power as the angels exercised at 
Sodom and Gomorrah would be absolutely futile 
as against spirit-beings. Jesus walked with Shad- 
rach, Meshach and Abed-nego in a furnace hotter 
than the smoking plains of Sodom and took no 
hurt; but of course a miracle was performed in 
the case of His three human companions. 

But our point is the power of spiritual beings 
over physical things. True we cannot easily 
imagine a realm peopled with beings capable of 
wielding such tremendous forces; but perhaps it 
will only then be realized why man was original- 
ly made but “little lower than God.” ‘The re- 
deemed and resurrected will then come into their 
originally planned heritage of dominion over the 
physical creation, and perhaps more. What was 
undone at the fall will be then more than re- 
trieved through the Seed of the woman. 


This limitless physical universe was not made 


84 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


for an uninhabitable waste. “The size and mag- 
nificence of it is prophetic of its purpose. “here 
must have been some correspondingly great ulti- 
mate design in its creation, and that purpose 
certainly involves the glory of the Redeemer and 
the future enjoyment of the redeemed. All 
height, all depth and every other creature will be 
theirs to use, govern, employ and enjoy. Every 
few days we are startled with some newly dis- 
covered beauty or utility in material things, and 
every such discovery uncovers clues to still others, 
—without end. Under the spirit-guided intelli- 
gence of men the world has been reborn in the 
last generation and the fact that all great dis- 
coveries and inventions are the product of Chris- 
tian countries, is progressive proof that the mate- 
rial universe with all its unmined possibilities is 
the intended future heritage of those who have 
the Spirit of Christ. We may therefore safely 


say that it is through the perfection of his spiritu- 


a “ 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 85 


al nature that man will come into his birthright 
of dominion. ‘This physical universe will prove 
neither too great or too grand for the use and 
pleasure of those for whom Jesus laid down His 
priceless life. 

To Gideon. An angel appeared to Gideon in 
the days of the Judges. Like Abraham he offered 
his visitor hospitality. He appears not to have 
recognized the angel as such until after the latter 
had drawn fire out of the rock to consume the 
offered flesh and cakes. The angel then “‘de- 
parted out of his sight”? in such a manner as to 
reveal his angelic character. “This indicates that 
he did not walk away as would a human being, 
but that he probably ‘‘vanished” just as Jesus did 
at His ascension. From this and many other like 
instances we may therefore confidently assume 
that the angels have power to clothe themselves 
at will with physical bodies, just as Jesus did 


several times during His post-resurrection stay 


86 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


among His disciples. «In doing so they were but 
preparing the minds of men for apprehending the 
acts and character of the Perfect Man when He 
should afterward appear. 

To Manoah. In this instance an angel appears, 
under the guise of a man, ‘‘a man of God,” as 
Manoah’s wife calls him. She probably thought 
him one of the sons of the prophets. Her hus- 
band being told of the visit prayed that the same 
“man’’ might come again, all on the supposition 
that he was an ordinary human. Manoah asked 
his name. ‘The hospitality of a meal is offered, 
but declined. At the angel’s suggestion the food 
is then offered as a sacrifice to God, and the angel 
then surprised them by going up toward heaven 
in the flame or smoke of the sacrifice. This re- 
vealed to Manoah the true but unsuspected char- 
acter of their visitor, showing that he was nei- 
ther God, or man, but an angel, purely a spirit 


being. He disappeared from their sight in the 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 87 


same manner that a cloud of smoke or mist dis- 
solves into transparency. His ability to do this 
was to Manoah and his wife a confirmation of the 
strange things he had told them. ‘They reasoned 
that one who possessed such unusual power might 
easily have super-natural wisdom. ‘To a like 
purpose and to a greater degree the very manner 
of Jesus’ ascension was an irrefutable confirmation 
of everything He had said. None present at His 
ascension ever afterward questioned either His 
identity, His Messiaship, or His almighty power. 
He was Master of all worlds, material and spirit- 
ual, visible and invisible. 

Let us in passing consider for a moment what 
is proven by the manner of Christ’s ascension. 
In addition to the much deeper spiritual truths 
implied, it, as compared with His pre-resurrec- 
tion life, shows that He was now absolutely 
superior to every physical force, claim, or barrier. 


One who could thus ‘‘ascend” without any physi- 


88 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


. 


cal means or assistance could roam the material 
universe at will, could surmount without at all 
violating them, any law of matter, or any thing 
or force which is subject to material law. Only 
a short distance above the earth’s surface the at- 
mosphere becomes so heatless that no physical life 
can exist. A little farther up there is neither air 
nor oxygen, and physical breathing becomes both 
useless and impossible. External atmospheric 
pressure is removed so that a body, such as we 
possess, held together by such pressure, would 
burst like a soap bubble in a vacuum. In His 
post-resurrection days Jesus did not need to even 
breathe in order to live, for otherwise the height 
to which He could ascend (in the absence of a 
continuous miracle) would have been limited to a 
few miles. When it is recorded that Jesus, after 
His resurrection, “breathed”? upon His disciples, 
something other than exhaled air is symbolized 


and meant. ‘This is shown by what He said and 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 8g 


by its effect as well. The plain inference from 
all the circumstances is that there was no sug- 
gestion of a “miracle” at His ascension. The 
death of His physical body stripped Him of every- 
thing upon which death in any form could fasten 
its fangs. Physical death was left behind in a 
world-where it is still needed, but it has no tooth 
or tallon which can make a prey of Him or them. 
No physical law was set aside. Physical death is 
still as much a master in the physical world as it 
was before Christ came. “The victory over death 
which Jesus achieved was the power to bestow 
upon His redeemed a nature, body and soul which 
death cannot reach. 

To Jesus, at His resurrection, all these destruc- 
tive physical instrumentalities, such as heat, cold, 
“storm, fire, water, poison, light, darkness and 
electricity became mere servants, not masters, as 
formerly. Every miracle which He performed 


during his previous ministry was a side-light, a 


90 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


fore-running prophecy and herald of the time 
when, by his resurrection, he would have subdued 
ALL things to himself as the Son of Man. In 
this He was the Progenitor, the Prince, and Rep- 
resentative of a New Race. 

While discussing with His disciples His essen- 
tially spirit nature (John 6:62) He had asked 
them, “What and if ye shall see the Son of Man 


?” He now answers the question and ex- 


ascend 
plains by His acts what they could not then 
understand, namely that He was heir to a nature, 
and to a body and blood that He could even share 
with His people as their food and drink. He had 
now ascended as the Son of Man and as the Rep- 
resentative of a regenerated race, had carried 
Human Nature with Him. 

At His resurrection He simply slipt out from 
under all the tools with which death had hitherto 
plied his trade, and soared away like a bird escaped 


from a futile snare. His triumph as Son of Man 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 91 


was universal, complete, proved, eternal, and it is 
now His to bestow as He will. 

And the ability to do the same things with the 
forces of nature is a part of that unspeakable 
future heritage left to His followers. Paul senses 
this when he says, “All things are yours,’ life, 
death, height, depth, things present and things to 
come. It means that beginning with the conquest 
of material things the sovereignty of redeemed 
spirits extends on into the unseen, the invisible, 
the eternal. It means that a rift has been made 
and an inclosable pathway opened through the 
physical into a realm utterly beyond the reach of 
death or corruption. His disciples saw Him pass 
through the door and heard Him say, “Follow 
me.’ ‘Thus He has lured aloft the vision of 
mankind and has started men to thinking in the 
A B CS of another language, another life, another 


world. From being mere worms of the dust, He 


92 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


has made of them aspirants for celestial realms of 
unspeakable glory. 

He remained upon the earth, subject to all of 
its forbidding environments and humiliations just 
long enough to irremovably fasten upon Himself 
the questioning eyes of a representative number 
of the race, and then took His flight toward a 
realm of a character hitherto unsuspected by men. 
And in doing so He planted in men’s minds a 
new hope, a new and supreme aspiration, a new 
goal. No man has ever even suggested a higher 
enterprise than following Him to that place and 
condition to which He has gone. The little com- 
pany He left gazing cloudward “over against 
Bethany” was symbolic of a later “host that no 
man can number.” And despite the question of 
the angels that then appeared to the disciples, de- 
spite the objections of physical science, of incre- 
dulity, of doubt and unbelief, the whole world is 


still gazing at the physical vacancy into which 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 93 


He disappeared. And though the Christian world 
is still echoing the previous plaints of Thomas 
“we know not whither thou goest, and how can 
we know the Way” its very questioning is uncon- 
sciously lifting it toward the new firmament to 
which He is even now piloting a New Race. 
Jesus had promised that if He be lifted up He 
would draw all men unto Himself. Men thought 
He referred only to the manner of His death, but 
what He afterward did explains that reunfolding 
promise and amplified its meaning a hundred fold. 
He is fulfilling that pledge in a way never sus- 
pected at the time of its utterance, and no man 
can now or ever measure all He meant. In draw- 
ing men to Himself He draws them into His own 
spiritual character, His own capacity for enjoy- 
ment, His own personal likeness, His own “‘life’’, 
His own liberty, as well as into His own un- 
bounded loyalty to God and godliness. And 


withal He is drawing them not only toward a 


94 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


freedom from sin, and toward freedom from even 
its temptation, but toward a freedom from all the 
ills to which the flesh is heir. 

Before closing this chapter, and passing by 
many other angelic visits, let us briefly recall the 
experience of Elisha’s servant. He and his master 
were surrounded in Dothan by a host of Syrian 
soldiers, horses, and chariots. “They being un- 
armed and physically defenseless the servant 
thought they would be taken prisoners or killed. 
Elisha, who was an eminent type of Christ and 
a great miracle worker, asked God to open His 
servant’s eyes for a glimpse of their invisible 
protectors. “This done, the trembling young man 
saw that the mountain was full of horses and 
chariots of brightness. 

Elisha knew beforehand that these defenders — 
were there. Having spiritual vision he could see 
spirit things which his servant could not. “Those 


defenders were as real as were the walls of the 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 95 


near-by city of Samaria or as were the horses and 
chariots of the Syrian host. All that was needed 
was ability to see what already existed. Jesus 
during His earthly life had invisible protectors of 
the same kind and for that matter every child of 
God has them. We may now see them by faith 
only, perhaps, but that faith does not create them. 
Though invisible to us they are no less real than 
the friends through whose ministry they often act. 

Faith thus gives us a new sense, that of actual- 
ly seeing what is otherwise invisible, not merely 
imagining it; for imagination is not, of itself, 
faith. Indeed Paul seems to warrant the belief 
that our faith, even though feeble, may even now 
by exercise over-reach all our physical senses and 
carry us into conscious touch with another world. 
Our faith thus becomes a present prophet and 
prophecy of what we will be and what we will be 
able to do and enjoy. “The defenders which the 


young man saw were of spirit-substance, not ma- 


96 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


terial entities at all, for otherwise they would 
have been visible before. ‘They had the physical 
form of horses, chariots, and of men, probably 
assuming those particular shapes then and there 
for the suggestive and more impressive efiect the 
sight of them would have upon the on-lookers. 

‘Two journals of international repute, one in 
America and the other in England, each recently 
gave prominence to what they considered a worth- 
while “poem on the monotony of heaven.” ‘The 
writers deplored the tiresomeness of “a perpetual 
program of praising God.” ‘The suggestion is not 
new. It springs from false teachings and from 
the gross misconceptions of Christian leaders of 
thought. It is foolish and more than foolish—it 
is wicked. It is of a kind with the belittling and 
- cowardly report which ten of the twelve viewers 
brought back to the Israelites from the promised 
land, only a thousand fold less excuseless. 


We believe that with every additional power 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 97 


and sense which the spirit world will give to us 
a new depth and variety and a new and amplified 
world of enjoyment will open before the enrap- 
tured vision of the redeemed. ‘The infinity of 
space, the starry heavens and the fathomless mys- 
teries of the Milky Way are all suggestive proph- 
ecies of this. At the right hand of God are 
“rivers” of pleasures and personal rapturous 
gratifications doubtless of varieties and depths 
greater than any earthly imagination can even 
picture. And they will be summed up in prais- 
ing that Ineffable Being whose Love has provided 
all of them. Every pleasure felt will be but a 
perfectly natural expression of ecstatic praise to 
the Giver of it all. 


98 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


CHAPTER FIVE 


‘THE Spirit-Bopy oF JEsSus 


Perhaps some reader will object that there is 
no such thing as a body composed of spirit-sub- 
stance,—that the word involves a direct contra- 
diction of terms. And no doubt to many the 
phrase does at first sound like speaking of white 
black, cold heat, dry water, or illuminating dark- 
ness. But is it after all such a contradiction of 
language? or what is much more important, Is 
the phrase warranted by Scripture? or does it 
really imply a contradiction of facts? Is there 
such a thing as a body composed of spirit? a liv- 
ing, acting sentient organism without physical 


parts? 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 99 


While the question we have raised, or rather 
recognized (for it is an old one), concerns the 
resurrection body, it has a far wider reference. 
‘The correct answer to this question lies at the 
very base of an intelligent apprehension of the 
Christian religion. At heart the question is 
whether God is actually able to give us such a 
body. Before Adam was created doubting angels 
might, with as much propriety, have questioned 
whether He could make such a being as a physi- 
cal body. Being purely spirit such a being would 
contradict their own personal experience. 

We are all conscious of the fact that in many 
minds the Christian religion is very largely an 
unreal thing. T’o many it exists mainly as a 
system of imaginary or unreachable ideals, great 
and noble, but vague and without real substance. 
Religion is therefore relegated to the region of 
the unnatural, the visionary, the ghostly, the 


super-natural. Belief, then and therefore, be- 


100 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


comes indefinite. God is at least a far off Spirit 
that is unknowable, and His kingdom is likewise 
ethereal, transcendental, intangible, and, after all, 
may have no fixity of existence except as a misty 
conception. From the beginning to the very end 
of His ministry Jesus was obliged to endure the 
contradiction of sinners in this particular matter. 
They could not realize spirit-things and spirit- 
values. “They were “carnal”, and persisted in 
weighing His words in material scales. 

As examples of this, how often even His most 
sympathetic disciples gave His utterances the 
blank stare of incredulity. On one occasion He 
told them that He had meat to eat that they 
knew not of. ‘Their after conduct and words 
show that they did not at all comprehend Him. 
They thought, as millions since have thought, 
that He was simply dealing in mysticism or with 
a mental abstraction and not with a tremendous 
literal fact. When he told them that, “Except 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 101 


ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His 
blood ye have not life in yourselves,” they thought 
that He was just trying perhaps to startle them 
with some sort of a paradox. When he said, “He 
that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath 
eternal life and I will raise him up at the last 
day, for my flesh is meat indeed and my blood is 
drink indeed,’ He must needs preface the declara- 
tion with a double asseveration “Verily, verily I 
say unto you.’ (John 6:53). And at that even 
then His disciples did not believe what he told 
them. ‘They thought he was talking about His 
literal physical flesh and blood. ‘They could not 
conceive of His having any other than a physical 
body. “They could not as yet rise to the concep- 
tion of a spirit-body a thousand times more really 
real than the physical one they saw before them, 
—a body of which they could actually partake 
without injuring or diminishing it, a life blood of 


which they could all drink without committing 


102. The Resurrection and Its Implications 


the crime of leaching His life away. ‘The miracle 
of the multiplication of bread of the day before 
was the illustration of what He now meant. AIl- 
though He said “Verily, verily,’ they did not 
think He was talking of a verity at all. They 
came back with the question, “How can this man 
give us His flesh to eat ?” 

We have cited these passages and incidents, 
some of which we have previously noted, for a 
double purpose. First we would point out how 
impossible it is to understand the teaching of 
Jesus, and that of the Christian Faith without 
first apprehending the objective reality of a super- 
world, a world of which the present material one 
is a mere subjective suggestion, a dim shadow. 
Our second purpose is to gather from them a 
definite idea of the spirit-nature of Christ’s res- 
urrection body, which in turn and therefore in- 
dicates the spirit-nature of the bodies of those 


which He will raise up at the last day. 





The Resurrection aud Its Implications 103 


It is Carlyle, we believe, who says that ‘‘custom 
makes dullards of us. Habits of thought hood- 
wink us.” ‘They betray our judgment into old 
grooves. “They hold the mind in a coma. Be- 
cause God in this present life reveals Himself to 
His children by such things as sensation, time, 
motion, and matter, we conceive that there are 
no other ways. We limit God to the finite. We 
unconsciously challenge Him to have thoughts 
higher than ours. Because we have but five 
senses we think that no more are possible, even if 
we must verily contradict our intelligence to 
prove it. In reading the Scripture we see the 
type only and miss what it means. We try to 
put the universe into a mud-hut. Perhaps blind 
earthworms may for some such reason discredit 
the facts of sunlight and clouds, and we are like 
them. In a word we lack faith to follow Jesus 
in what He said and did. 


But the Scriptures make all allowances for dull 


104 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


pupils. They are therefore full of kindergarten 
lessons. “They ask us, if we cannot understand 
what Jesus said to believe Him for His work’s 
sake. ‘hese were things which the disciples could 
not then understand but which were to be made 
plain later. It is doubtful whether the fifteenth 
chapter of First Corinthians could have been 
written sooner than it was, or by any save one 
like Paul,—one who had been caught up to the 
third heavens, and had seen unutterable things. 
Nor do we always need to deny our senses or 
go beyond them to find proof of the existence of 
this upper spirit world. Jesus Christ, who is 
essentially Spirit, and God equal with the Fa- 
ther, became flesh and dwelt among us. Origin- 
ally He was not flesh, but spirit. During the days 
of his flesh he was seen, handled, fondled, and He 
in this way humbled Himself to human capacity 
and apprehension, so as to make visible to men the 
otherwise Invisible God. At His baptism the 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 105 


otherwise invisible Spirit descended and _ visibly 
rested upon Him. At the Pentecost that same 
invisible Spirit visibly rested upon a large com- 
pany of people. “Chis was not a seeming, but a 
literal fact. Not only did those present see this 
manifestation with their physical eyes but they 
heard with their physical ears the approach of 
the Spirit. Each one of them was physically and 
mentally as well as spiritually thus made aware 
of His presence. “They were each not only im- 
mediately conscious of the truth which the Spirit 
brought to them but they instantly found them- 
selves for the occasion transported as it were to 
the precincts of a new world. Nothing now ap- 
peared the same to them. Unlearned Galileans 
spoke languages that they had never heard and no 
doubt uttered truths of which they had no pre- 
vious knowledge. ‘They were all under the hov- 
ering pervasive influence of the Holy Spirit,—a 


Spirit made sensible to their eyes by the semblance 


106 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


of tongues of fire,—for the purposes of the hour. 

Therefore when we are told, Rev. 1:7, that the 
return of Jesus will be visible to every eye it is 
not necessary to conclude that He must appear in 
a material body like that which was nailed to the 
cross. Indeed the fact that He will appear simul- 
taneously both to the physically dead and to the 
physically alive would prohibit the possibility of 
its being merely a physical appearance. Both the 
dead and the alive will hear the same voice, at 
the same time. ‘Both the just and the unjust will 
hear it. Ears whose nerves and drums have been 
dust for ages will tingle at the call of that voice, 
not because they have been re-created in material 
form, but because that sense for which ears stand 
continues to exist in spirit-form. These things 
could be true only of a spirit voice that can 
penetrate the world of spirit and cause spirits to 
apprehend. ‘Therefore, just as surely as there is a 


physical body there is also another one, a different 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 107 


one, a spirit one. Even here nature furnishes us 
with an illustrative analogy. Science has proven, 
as already noted, that all space and all material 
things are pervaded with a substance, which, for 
want of a better name it calls ether. ‘To it, and 
that which it bears, no physical thing offers any 
bar or resistance. There is no vacuum from which 
it can be excluded. More dense than a block of 
lead it permits all material bodies to circulate 
within its mass. It is as it were the all-pervading 
spirit of the physical world, yet it has none of the 
properties of matter, whatsoever. 

That great primary creation of which Adam 
was a part reached its climax of glory in the 
creation of man. “The human body exhibited, as 
it were, His highest skill in physical things. If 
the Creator be regarded as an Artisan the pro- 
duction of the first pair of human beings was His 
then crowning achievement. It was a greater act 


than the creation of a solar system. ‘Chat it was 


108 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


such is proved by a dozen sciences. In all the 
range of material things there is nothing equal 
to it. ‘There is no other thing so much admired 
for its beauty and comeliness and which has been 
studied more. To obtain food, shelter, comfort, 
gratification, health, and training for it, has been 
the chief occupation of men in all countries and 
in all ages. Our modern civilization centers in 
its welfare, and indeed there appears to be in this 
life no such thing as a general moral advance- 
ment apart from advancement of the physical 
welfare and vigor of the race. “Those sent forth 
to proclaim the first advent of Christ and the 
immanence of His kingdom were commissioned 
to heal also all manner of bodily diseases. It is 
therefore evident that the natural body, such as 
the first Adam had, was designed for a great and 
noble purpose, greater perhaps than has been 
realized. Its intended uses were legion, but the 
principal one was that it might serve as a fit 


temporary temple or domicile for the living soul, 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 109 


—that part of man that was made in the image 
of God. ‘That body was made to suit its tenant, 
just as a house is built, not for beasts or fish, but 
for humans. ‘Therefore occupancy and govern- 
ment of that body by the spirit of man is the 
primary form of the Kingdom of God, to demon- 
strate and cultivate the lordship of his spirit. 
But with all that, this was not God’s greatest 
creative work. Adam, physically, was not His 
finished ideal. He was a failure. God afterward 
said that He even “repented Him that He had 
made man.” And the reason assigned was that 
man, following the verve and earthward pull of 
his flesh-born lusts, was as naturally inclined 
earthward as are the sparks to fly upward. It 
was to release mankind from this gravity of the 
flesh that Jesus came, and He preached a kingdom 
in which this release would surely take place. 

We recall that in “the days of His flesh” the 


Jews directed the attention of Jesus to the mag- 


110 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


nificent Temple at Jerusalem, the Temple he had 
tried in vain to cleanse. His disciples pointed 
with pride to the great stones of which it was 
built, and possibly to its roof of gold. It had, in 


fact, required in its building an average lifetime. 


But He astonished his hearers by telling them 


that if it were destroyed He could build it again 
in three days. It is then explained, however, that 
while they thought He was speaking of Herod’s 
‘Temple He was really using it only as a sym- 
bolism or figure of His own human body. ‘There 
was, therefore, an important and distinct sense in 
which the two things, his then body and the then 
‘Temple, stood for the same thing. What was the 
analogy? In what way were they identical? 
How far we are warranted in carrying the 
analogy we do not know, but there must have 
been some very impressive and instructive reason 
for His identifying the two as one. Did the fact 
that one of them could be “destroyed” (as all 


. 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 111 


recognized) suggest also that the other could also 
be destroyed? Did the fact that one of them was 
shortly to be razed to the dust and never rebuilt 
conceal within it a lke prophecy concerning the 
other? or did He mean to say that the Temple 
which He would afterward rear up in three days 
would thenceforth serve the purpose of both? 
that He would build a new Temple and take to 
himself another body, neither of which could be 
defiled or destroyed? 

Later on He told His disciples that this great 
Herod Temple would be thrown down, that not 
one stone would be left upon another. As a 
Temple it would be completely anihilated. (Matt. 
24:21). And it is worth while noting also that 
there is no rightly interpreted prophecy that this 
material temple will ever be rebuilt. History 
agrees that it has not been. Its great purpose was 
fully served before its destruction by Titus and 
Vespasian, just as the physical body of Jesus had 


112 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


served its full purpose before and in its death. 
True there was to be eventually a new creation, 
but no such Temple. When John was afterward 
shown a vision of the Holy City, symbolizing that 
new creation, he says: “And I saw no ‘Temple 
therein.’ (Rey. 21:22). How could this won- 
derful statement be even symbolically true if in 
heaven the Lamb is clothed in a body of flesh and 
bones? ‘The former things were to pass away. 
All things were to become new. ‘The new body 
and the new ‘Temple are one in kind,—one in 
fact. “The LAMB is the Temple thereof.” 
But coming back to Paul’s declaration and its 
illustration (I Cor. 15, 44), we are assured that 
there will be a spiritual body just as certainly as 
there is now such a thing as a “natural” one. But 
the word here rendered “natural” in our trans- 
lations does not really express the meaning of the 
Greek word which Paul uses. For the word 


which Paul uses, and which the translators have 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 113 


rendered natural is in the marginal rendering, 
“psychical”, He could have used a Greek word 
which is the exact equivalent of our word natural, 
but he did not do it. Why? Neither does he 
use the equivalent of our word “physical”. Nor 
does our word “material”? convey this meaning. 
Indeed he wished to express something not exactly 
conveyed by any English word that we know of. 
Hence it is necessary to understand the meaning 
of the Greek word he uses before we can under- 
stand precisely what he means. We cannot sense 
the contrast he draws without this. One thing 
is quite clear. If he had been contrasting two 
bodies of the same kind of substance he would not 
have used the illustrations which he appends to 
this declaration. He is contrasting a ‘“‘natural” 
with a “spiritual” body. It is sown a natural 
body but is raised something entirely different. 
What is the difference? What constitutes the 


essence of the distinguishment? In order to un- 


114. The Resurrection and Its Implications 


derstand Paul’s answer to this question we recur 
to the finely discriminative distinction which he 
makes. 

The Greek word here rendered “natural” is, 
in the margin, as we have stated, translated 
“psychical”, meaning a body habitable by a 
psyche or spirit-being, or soul, as distinguished 
from a body like that of an ape, not habitable by 
a soul or spirit. Our translators wisely refrained 
from using this word “psychical” in the main 
text of the translation. It is of Greek derivation, 
is little used in English, and would therefore have 
been confusing to the average reader. On the 
contrary the word “natural” is well understood 
to mean just such a body as we all now possess. 
It is the body which “dies’’, is “sown” in the 
grave, as distinct from the one that God will 
give us at the “resurrection.” 

The point which we are making, as brought 


out by the American Revision, and by it fully 





The Resurrection and Its Implications 115 


indicated in the marginal rendering, is that the 
“natural” body which is placed in the grave was 
in life more than a mere corporeal anatomy. It 
was not merely a material substance, like a stone 
or like the carcass of an animal. It was, on the 
contrary, a body which had been for a time the 
recognized domicile of a human soul, a sou/ that 
has been even born again and which is conse- 
quently now the heir of immortal life. It had 
been for years the instrument of a deathless 
spirit. It was the body of flesh in which the soul 
of Jesus dwelt for thirty-three years, and yet for 
all this it is not that body nor the kind of body 
that believers will have at the resurrection. Other- 
wise Paul would not have placed it in such out- 
standing contrast with a “spirit” body. Yet this 
latter, the spirit body, will, in the resurrection, 
serve a purpose exactly analogous with that of the 
discarded “psychical” or “natural’’ body. 


Both are houses in which a spirit may dwell, 


116 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


yet they are different from each other. ‘the one 
has been the habitat of a living, yet mortal soul, 
such as Adam had, while the other is to be the 
tabernacle of a soul that cannot die. Moreover 
a body which would suit the ‘first Adam’ would 
thus, in Paul’s belief, not serve as a fit residence 
for the spirit of one like the Second Adam. Sin, 
disease, corruption and fire could attach to the 
first or psychical, or ‘‘natural’” body, but they 
cannot kindle within or upon the second. Paul is 
here laboring to distinguish clearly between two 
kinds of bodies, and not between the spirits or 
souls which inhabit them. “The one he is trying 
to define will therefore not be a physical body, 
nor even a psychical one, but an entirely different 
one, a spirit one,—of spirit substance. 

There is, therefore, though we have difficulty 
in apprehending it, such a thing as a body in 
which spirit-substance takes completely the place 


of physical substances. The phrases ‘‘metaphysical 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 117 


essence” and “denaturalized substance” have been 
coined to express the idea. Others have used the 
word “substance”, as distinct from the mere 
appearance of substance, as though substance, in 
its last analysis, is not matter at all, but spirit. 
‘Taken together they are an attempt to express, 
in terms of human experience, a thing that is well 
outside the range of all physical sense or physical 
science. “The suggestion of such a body was 
originally lodged in the human mind by the visits 
and actions of angels, which are purely spirit, and 
was later confirmed by the miracles performed by 
them and by Christ. These latter were however 
simply “‘signs’”’ of the prior existence of an empire 
of invisible substances and forces, none the less 
real because human eyes, ears, and fingers could 
not sense it. Not only has this Invisible Empire 
its prophets in Scripture but it now also has them 
in nature, as already observed. ‘These are all 


seers of a world which lies outside the five senses 


118 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


we now have. It is impossible therefore, to deny 
its existence. 
But while it involves one of those great myste- 
ries of the Kingdom of heaven, hid since the 
foundation of the physical universe, it and the 
sublime purpose of it came to light only through 
Christ. “Therefore the Christian faith is, in the 
ery last analysis, the final interpreter of even the 
physical world in which we live. It is the begin- 
ning and the end of physical science. He who 
sees or pretends to see a conflict between Scrip- 
tural truth and scientific fact is ignorant of one of 
them, perhaps both. ‘This physical universe has 
a spirit, an inner reason for its existence, and to 
ignore this when pursuing scientific investigation 
is, to say the least, foolish. 
Therefore after we have fully recognized all 
the dignity and grace that can be attributed to 
the present physical human body we must recog- 


nize that even it is of the earth earthy. All its 





The Resurrection and Its Implications 119 


greatness is not worthy to be compared with the 
glory which shall be revealed in, to, and through 
the resurrected. “Theirs will be “celestial” bodies 
as contrasted with the “‘terrestrial.”’ 

Adam’s body and all it stood for, while perfect 
of its kind “was subjected to vanity, not of its 
own will, but by reason of [im who subjected it, 
in hope that the creation itself (that human spirit 
which dwells within and behind it), also shall be 
delivered from the bondage of corruption into the 
liberty of the glory of the children of God.” The 
body which displaces that physical body, must be 
the complete antithesis of the old. It will not be 
subject to the “vanity” or vanishment of the for- 
mer one, but will be free to go where the old 
could not endure, see, hear, feel and enjoy things 
utterly impossible to the former one. It will be 
at the call and service of a spirit set free to roam 
the infinite universe of God. It will not depend 


upon any material means of subsistence or assist- 


120 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


ance, any more than did Christ, after his resur- 
rection, depend on them. It will have the spirit 
senses of which Paul speaks, and will, therefore, 
not depend upon any physical means of communi- 
cation, for enjoyment or protection. It may be 
normally invisible to physical sight, for Paul tells 
us that the things which are not seen are the 
eternal. But however this may be it will be just 
as visible to spirit-vision as physical objects are to 
our natural eyes. 

As to what that spirit body will be, we are 
again thrown back upon our only sure source of 
information, the resurrected body of Jesus. He 
-was the complete and perfect Adam of a new 
creation, the progenitor of a new race, a new 
kind of human. . 

The fleshly body of Jesus, as we have said, 
was a human body, and except that it was sinless 
it was in composition no wise different from that 


of Adam’s body or ours. He was bone of our 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 121 


bones and flesh of our flesh. ‘Since then the 
children are sharers in flesh and blood, He also 
in like manner took part in the same; that 
through death (of these) He might bring to 
naught Him that had the power of death, that is 
the devil.” (Hebrews 2:14). And this body was 
prepared for Him. (Ps. 40:6 quoted in Heb. 
10:5). It was “offered once for all” as a com- 
plete and perfect sacrifice. “This body is spoken 
of as a “‘veil’, as though it concealed within or 
beyond itself something more important. It was 
symbolized by the veil of the Temple which hung 
between the holy and the most holy, between this 
life and the next, between the material ‘and the 
spiritual, between the imperfect and the perfect. 
This veil had indicated to the worshippers that 
the way into the holiest of all was not yet opened, 
but at the moment when Christ’s physical body 
was forsaken of its spirit an unseen hand rent that 


veil from top to bottom. It is a curious thing 


122 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


that the rending of that veil, said to have been six 
inches thick, without hands, at the hour of the 
evening sacrifice, did not cause the ‘Temple priests 
to stop, look and think what the rending meant. 
That. Temple is gone. That veil is gone. 
That material body which they symbolized is 
gone. “Wherefore we henceforth know no man 
aiter the flesh; even though we have known 
Christ after the flesh, yet now know Him so no 
more. Wherefore if any man is in Christ he is a 
new creature.’ (II Cor. 5:16). And Paul here 
in following sentences assigns a deep philosophic 
reason for all this. It is that humans may be 
raised to a nature that can be “reconciled” to 
God,—made one with Him. God, as manifested 
in the Son of Man, for the time humbled Him- 
self to the nature and level of the Human. He 
took upon Himself all the limitations of the race 
of flesh. But this was not permanent. For doing 
this humble service ‘God also hath highly exalted 


( BS 
ics A 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 123 


Him.” (Phil. 2:9). In that exaltation the Son 
of Man carried human nature up to such a com- 
munity of life with God that a reconciliation be- 
tween them is possible, and even natural. And to 
this end men are stripped of their former gar- 
ments of flesh and are given bodies “like unto 
Christ’s glorious body.” 

The reader may, in opposition to our argu- 


ment, cite Paul’s statements in— 


Rom. 8:11: “But if the spirit of him that 
raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you, he 
that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall 
give life (vitality) also to your mortal bodies 
through his Spirit that dwelleth in you.” 


Rom. 8:23: “Ourselves also, who have the first 
fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan with- 
in ourselves, waiting for our adoption, to wit, the 
redemption of our body.” 


Or, over against this,— 


I Cor. 6-13: “Meats for the belly and the 
belly for meats, but God shall destroy both it and 
them.” 


124 The Resurrection and Its [Implications 


Verse 19: “Or know ye not that your body is 
a temple of the Holy Spirit which (Spirit) 1s in 
you which ye have from God.” 

None of these passages necessarily refer to the 
future life. ‘The redemption of our body” evi- 
dently means its transfer from the service of sin- 
ful passions to the service of God, in this life, and 
not to the resurrection. ‘The three successive 
Jewish temples, from which Paul takes his figure, 


were each totally destroyed. 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 125 


CHAPTER SIX 


THE NEw BIRTH AND THE RESURRECTION 


The New Birth and the Resurrection are so 
closely related that they mutually shed light upon 
each other. “That which finds life in the new 
birth is that which participates in the resurrection 
which awaits the twice-born, and in the blessed- 
ness that follows. “The soul which can prove to 
itself that it has been reborn thereby proves con- 
clusively that it will have part in the resurrec- 
tion of the just. Can one say with assurance “I 
love God ?”—the evidence is complete. Can he 
say likewise “Jesus is Lord’? He may know on the 
authority of the Divine Word that he does so 


only because he is born of and possessed by the 


126 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


Spirit. Can he say truly that he loves his fellow 
men,—he has added another proof; but can he say 
with Job “I know that my Redeemer Liveth?” 
then he can also say with that ancient saint 
“Without my flesh I shall see God.” 

What then is regeneration, the New Birth? 
In that third chapter of John’s Gospel Jesus ex- 
plains it to Nicodemus, and His whole definition 
turns upon the declaration that “that which is 
born of the flesh is flesh but that which is born of 
the Spirit is spirit.” 

The Great Teacher here draws a generic dis- 
tinction, both as to source and essence, between 
two distinct kinds of beings, and also between the 
earthly tabernacle in which the soul for the time 
lives and that “house from heaven” which God 
will give to it at the resurrection. “The natural 
body is of clay and at death returns to its native 
element. “The other body is not of clay and 


therefore cannot return to dust, or become dust. 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 127 


It cannot for it is not composed of any element 
reducible to or which will combine with dust. 
The natural body, according to Paul, and as 
evidenced by common experience, can be “dis- 
solved”, but no such term is ever applied to the 
reborn. ‘Tio the thief upon the cross Jesus prom- 
ised that he would be, that very day, with Him 
in Paradise. “That promise had no reference, 
near or remote, to the fleshly frame of either of 
them. The body of the one went to Joseph’s 
tomb, the other to the Potters Field. 

And in passing let us note the prayer of the 
thief, ‘““Lord, remember me when thou comest into 
thy Kingdom.” ‘That prayer was doubtless in- 
spired by the mockery of the crown of thorns on 
His head, or by the superscriptions of contempt 
nailed to the cross above it. Through glazing 
eyes from which every earthly hope had fled the 
thief saw the reality ;—that Jesus was indeed a 


King of an unseen and unearthly kingdom, and 


128 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


he had faith to believe that sooner or later He 
would come into possession of it. It is one of the 
shortest, most comprehensive and most effective 
prayers ever offered. It appealed directly to the 
very heart of Christ for it showed that here was 
at least one person who had fully sensed His 
great ultimate purpose in coming to the earth. 
It specifically implied that he who uttered the 
prayer knew that Jesus would continue to live, 
and in doing so would come into possession of a 
kingdom composed of repentant sinners such as 
he was. 

No one can pray that prayer unless prompted 
to do so by the Holy Spirit. (I Cor. 12:3). The 
prayer marked one who has been already regene- 
rated, reborn. One is tempted to believe there- 
fore that it is a realizing sight of Jesus as Lord, 
as King, that regenerates the soul, for the ability 
to see Him as such is proof of Spirit perception. 


Peter in his Pentecostal Sermon, when three 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 129 


thousand persons were converted, had for his 
theme Jesus as “both Lord and Christ.’ And 
the same thought is expressed by him on a later 
occasion, “Him did God exalt at His right hand 
to be a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance 
to Israel and remission of sins.” 

‘The prayer of the thief was answered even 
while his legs were being broken, his torn physi- 
cal body yet hanging on the cross, or perhaps 
being thrown to the dogs; but he himself, his 
complete personality, was with Jesus in Paradise. 
And can anyone suppose that that thief would 
ever want to see again that sin-sodden and sin- 
scarred body? In any case that body was not 
necessary to his being in Paradise. All that was 
savable or worth saving of that man, his regene- 
rated soul, was with his Saviour in a realm where 
such bodies, and the memories they inspire, are 
wholly out of harmony. Paul would have said 


of that malefactor that he must be free from that 


130 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


disfigured and degraded body in order to be “pres- 
ent with the Lord” in paradise. 

Let us get before us as clearly as possible just 
what Jesus uttered into the mind of His night- 
time pupil on this subject. Nicodemus was a 
thoughtful student of the Scriptures. He wanted 
to know how it would be possible for him: to 
gain admission into that wonderful kingdom 
which Jesus had been describing in His talks in 
Galilee. Nicodemus was from the same country 
in which Jesus began His Public preaching— 
Galilee; and had probably heard Jesus on many 
occasions. He was himself a Rabbi, a teacher. 
He was a Pharisee and therefore believed that 
any resurrection must be a physical rejuvenation. 
The teaching of Christ must have appealed to 
him very forcibly and he, like other millions since 
who have believed as he did, must have had dif- 
ficulty in apprehending how that body of his 


could be in the resurrection collected from the 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 131 


dust and made to live again; and he may have 
wondered what use it would be even if so col- 
lected. He doubtless felt that his soul was indis- 
solubly united with it and that any future ex- 
istence awaiting him must include it. But_his 
belief in that physical resuscitation could not be 
reconciled with Jesus’ teaching. Even if his 
weak, sin-smitten body could be raised and clothed 
with eternal life, how could it be made to com- 
port with that infinitely more refined, higher, 
holier, happier realm which Jesus described as the 
Kingdom of Heaven? His hope and questioning 
brought him to the only person on earth at that 
time who could give him light. Jesus replied to 
his question before it was put into words. Except 
one be born anew he cannot see, much less enter, 
the kingdom of God. 

Nicodemus was staggered at this declaration. 
’ He had never before heard of such a thing. And 


believing as all literalist Pharasees then believed, 


132 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


and still believe, it is no wonder he exclaimed, 
“How can these things be? How can a man be 
born when he is old?” 

It is altogether likely that this is one of the 
questions which also afterward staggered Paul 
the scholar, and that sent him away into the 
solitudes of Arabia in search of a solution. How 
could one be born afresh? ‘The fact is this 
astounding proposal in its very suggestion proves 
Jesus divine. No human ingenuity could have 
invented it. It bases salvation upon Divine Fa- 
therhood, the heritage of a new nature, the gift 
of a fatherly affection. One might indeed say 
that if that fatherhood is once bestowed the love 
that is implied in that most intimate relationship 
obliges God to save the subject of it. He could 
not be true to His own nature and leave His own 
child to perish. 

Many ere this had believed academically and 


speculatively, in the transmigration of souls, but 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 133 


here was something infinitely greater, absolutely 
new, and with a philosophic foundation in estab- 
lished fact. It involved the creation of an abso- 
lutely new body and the re-creation of the spirit. 
It meant the implantation of a new life, a new 
germ which in the event would drop the old like 
a forsaken shell and develop into a new kind of 
being; or, as Paul calls it, a new creation. 
Nicodemus was shocked, and, but for the teach- 
ing of the Spirit, who of us would not have been? 
Science and the wisdom of men are absolutely 
dumb before this declaration of Jesus. It leads 
out into a realm into which physical science, or 
even psychological research cannot enter. “These 
can no more reason of it or about it than about 
the nature, substance or origin of /ife itself. It is 
a heaven-born truth. It came from Heaven with 
Jesus, and came to earth because He came. ‘That 
new being cannot be apprehended with material 


senses. Like the wind which cannot be seen with 


134. The Resurrection and Its Implications 


the eye its presence can be realized only by the 
effects it produces. 

Nicodemus being an elderly man may have re- 
flected that his mother’s body was dead and de- 
cayed. How could he enter a second time into 
her womb or into any other and be born again? 
Impossible. His questions show that his belief 
regarding his body stood in the way of his seeing 
what Jesus was trying to teach him about his very 
self, just as the same belief, or rather unbelief, 
to-day is blinding the world in regard to the most 
important and the most wonderful doctrine of the 
Christian faith—regeneration, and the imperative 
necessity of it. 

But Jesus points out to him and to us all, that 
that which apprehends the bare fact of a King- 
dom of God is not this old body of clay, its in- 
tuitions, its physical senses, nor even its intellect, 
but a new intelligence, a new creature, one born 
of the Spirit of God; and therefore is, itself, of a 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 135 


spirit-substance like its Parent. Nothing Human 
can either realize within itself the heaven that 
Jesus preached, or go to it, except it be endowed 
with a spirit nature, like His. Jesus makes it 
pertectly clear, not only by inference, but by 
complete silence about His physical body, that the 
regeneration about which He was talking to 
Nicodemus does not apply to it at all. 

And here we can see how a failure to under- 
stand Christ’s teaching in regard to the resurrec- 
tion of the body: has opened the door to foolish 
speculation or worse. For example, note the great 
religious importance often placed upon the dead 
human body, and its preservation, as though it is 
necessary to a future admission to heaven. ‘The 
sprinkling of “holy water’ upon a dead corpse 
and the assumed necessity of depositing it in a 
“consecrated” graveyard is here seen to be merely 
pious mummery. It implies a belief that the 


identical physical elements composing that body 


136 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


will, at the resurrection, be recovered, reassem- 
bled and used of God in constructing that “house 
not made with hands.” And yet, upon the theory 
_ of a physical resurrection, and provided that there 
is warrant for believing that the sprinkling will 
in some mysterious way accomplish its pretended 
purpose, the custom is a perfectly reasonable one. 
But there is no such warrant; and while the 
ceremony does neither good or ill to the deceased, 
the solemn administration of the rite is finely 

calculated to impress living observers with the — 
feeling that the person who performs it is in some 
unexplainable way possessed of divine power over 
the eternal destiny of the dead. ‘This belief ac- 
cepted, or even suspected, logically calls for belief 
in an intervening purgatory, the escape from 
which becomes in turn an absolutely unbeatable 
means of priestly revenue. Who would not give 
up a few dollars to get a loved relative or friend 


out of the fire as quickly as possible? ‘Thus we 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 137 


see how a whole system of false pretense, fraud 
and imposture springs out of the apparently 
harmless theory that the dust that is buried will 
be the body that will be raised. Is it not easier 
to believe that God, who made our present tem- 
porary yet destructible ones, will be at the time 
able to furnish us with bodies eternally incorrupt- 
ible, bodies suited to the purposes and pleasures of 
our re-born and regenerated spirits? 

A remarkable thing about the world with which 
We are surrounded is that the spirit or life of 
every sentient thing is clothed with a body which 
exactly suits it, and that it is also placed in an 
environment exactly suited to its ultimate needs 
and enjoyments. ‘The clam has its shell and the 
mud. ‘The eagle has its feathers and the ex- 
panse of the empyrean blue. Why should there 
be an exception in the case of that particular 
object that God loves, that holy thing which 
bears His image, that thing expressly created for 


138 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


God’s most intimate society and eternal fellow- 
ship? If any part of this world is to be de- 
stroyed, annihilated, why should it not rather be 
that through which sin originally entered it? 
Paul associates regeneration with the resurrec- 
tion. In his mind the former conditions the lat- 
ter and the latter perfects the former. In First 
Corinthians fifteenth, to which we have referred, 
he uses a planted grain of wheat for the illustra- 
tion. The entire material substance of the planted 
seed dies and rots away. Nothing more is heard 
of it. To use the word which Paul applies to the 
body that is buried it is “dissolved.” It is as 
completely lost sight of as if it had never existed. 
It returns to and unites with the elements of 
which it was at first formed. No part of it re- 
appears in the new plant. Within that seed, 
however, there is an invisible germ, a wholly 
unapprehendable life principle which is no part of 


that material seed. It is merely resident for the 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 139 


time within it. That it is separable from its 
temporary container is shown by the fact that 
through the process which we call germination it 
leaves its old residence for an entirely new one, 
and never returns. “Yhough it cannot be seen, 
touched, weighed, tasted, nor by any human hand 
isolated, this germ or life finds its secret way into 
and produces the “new creature,” and abides and 
there becomes active by the act of God. ‘This is 
true in a stalk of wheat, true of all trees and 
seeding plants. It is through this unmaterial 
impalpable life germ that the identity, personality, 
and individuality of the seed is perpetuated and 
carried up to a new sphere of existence. “The 
phenomenon therefore is a simulation, common in 
our every day experience, of the greatest wonder- 
ment of all the ages, of what takes place in the 
resurrection. 

This wheat germ is not a material thing. It 


is in fact the spirit of the planted seed. It is 


140 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


purely life, a direct creation of God. Resident 
within our mortal bodies is a like principle, the 
life, which Paul elsewhere says is hid with Christ 
in God. From time immemorial men have tried 
to find the location of this elusive principle in the 
human anatomy, but all such attempts have failed 
and will fail. No man need search for what 
God purposely conceals. Biology calls it a cell, a 
germ, or a plasm, but this merely conceals igno- 
rance by a camouflage of words. It has neither 
length, breadth, or thickness. It has neither color, 
shape, or weight, or any other property that can 
be apprehended by any of our five present senses, 
nor by any precision-instrument which man can 
devise. The abyss which separates matter from 
spirit has never been bridged by human hands or 
human ingenuity and never will be. The Scrip- 
tures, under penalty of death forbade even the 
attempt to do so, not that there is any fear of 


anyone succeeding, but to discourage the fraud 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 141 


and imposture upon which any claimed success 
would necessarily be founded. The psychic phe- 
nomena produced by trance mediums are no more 
an evidence of established communication with 
the spirit world than is the barking of a dreaming 
pup. The fact that men attempt it shows the 
grossest misapprehension of what the spirit world 
is. ‘Ihe distance between these two worlds is not 
measurable in miles, like the distance to a moun- 
tain or a star, but is a distance of character and 
nature. “The foolishness of these attempts is a 
direct result of a misconception of the resurrection 
and its implications. 

And yet this spirit realm is there. It exists. 
There is in all the realm of established fact noth- 
ing more firmly fixed than the fact of life, and 
its residence in plant, animal and man. ‘That life 
or spirit also is the most really real and at the 
same time the most valuable thing about our 


personality. It is our personality. It is that part 


142 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


of us without which our bodies are worthless. 
It is a matter of common knowledge that through 
it we continue our identity, our separate individ- 
uality, memory, intelligence, affections and char- 
acter,—everything of value about us. And in its 
transference to a new world, and to a new body 
of God’s own providing, it carries with it no 
more of the substance of its old clay domicile than 
the germ of the seed carries up unto the new 
plant. It does not carry up with it even the odor 
of the decayed root or the corruption out of 
which it emerges. 

This process illustrates, perhaps as nearly as 
the process can be illustrated for us, what takes 
place in the rebirth. ‘The life, the personality 
which was resident in the kernel is what is reborn 
to a new existence. Nicodemus, though an ac- 
knowledged teacher had never noticed this, or at 
least had never applied the analogy to himself. 
It taxed his credulity and also that of the dis- 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 143 


ciples, but when discovered it fired the zeal and 
enthusiasm of Paul until he could see nothing but 
a hastening advantage to himself in having his 
body mobbed, stoned, or thrown to the beasts at 
Ephesus. He longed for the time when he could, 
with God’s permission, drop his burden of flesh. 
It is God’s holy one that cannot see corruption. 
It is God manifested, perhaps for the time, in 
human flesh. It is that within us which can see 
God and call Him Father. It is our very self. 
As we write these words we learn that Caruso 
the great singer is dead. “They mean that his 
physical bedy is consigned to its native element. 
His wonderfully trained voice is also silenced, but 
the melody of it lives on, and memory records 
will carry and perpetuate it in every land. “That 
of him which was seen by great thrilled audiences 
only visualized the tent in which the musician 
lived. “That which was not seen was the real, 


the enduring melodist. “The harp has fallen to 


144. The Resurrection and Its Implications 


pieces, but the melody cannot, for there is noth- 
ing about its thrilling cadences which the destroy- 
ing angel can strike. “This is a meager and im- 
perfect illustration but it suggests what we would 
say. 

Jesus informed Nicodemus that nothing can go 
to heaven except that which comes down out of 
heaven, through the fatherhood of the Spirit of 
God. Adam’s body was made by God, of red 
earth, not born of Him. All flesh is grass. “The 
wind of dissolution passes over it and it is gone, 
and the place thereof shall know it no more. But 
such things cannot be said of that which 1s born 
of God, that which is spirit, as He is spirit. “Che 
“flesh”? and all that is symbolized by it is enmity 
against God, for it is not subject to the law of 
God, neither indeed can be, but the mind of the 
Spirit is life. It is therefore the spirit, the soul, 
that is reborn, not the body. And the body which 


that reborn spirit is to inhabit for all eternity will 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 145 


be at the time born of and given to it of God, 
soon as it is needed,—at the resurrection. Each 
such spirit will have “its own body.” It will not 
be a body made of the dust of the earth nor will 
it be born of the will of man. It will be a new 
creation, fresh from the hand of God, and exact- 
ly suited to all the purposes, pursuits, and pleas- 
ures of the twice born soul. It will be in sub- 
stances and composition like the bodies of the 
Angels, like the body which Jesus had after His 


resurrection. 


146 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


\ 


CHAPTER SEVEN 
THE BETTER RESURRECTION 


In Scripture the word resurrection is applied to 
two distinct things. Both, with an indication of 
their fundamental difference, are mentioned in a 
single verse, Hebrews 11:35, ‘““Women received 
their dead by a resurrection; and others were 
tortured, not accepting the deliverance, that they 
might obtain a better resurrection.” 

The first of these is a mere recalling to life of 
the physical body and a temporary return to it of 
the recently departed spirit. Men were some- 
times the instruments of performing such resur- 
rections. “The second form of it, here called “a 


better resurrection’ is that which was for the 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 147 


first time, and completely, exemplified by Jesus 
when He rose from the dead. Such resurrections 
as the latter belong only in the spirit realm, and 
take place by the exercise of Divine Power alone. 
No human hand can perform it. It is a personal 
act of Divine Creative Power, one which forever 
places the subject of it absolutely beyond the reach 
of death. It is performed only by Him who is 
the Sole Creator and Author of LIFE. Power 
to raise the body, or to call back the spirit to it, 
might indeed be delegated, but the power to con- 
fer that new kind of body remains with Him who 
is LIFE,—_-THE CREATOR. 

The recorded instances of the former kind are, 
omitting that of Samuel and the Shunammite’s son: 

First. The Son of the Sidonian widow. I 
Kings 17:22. Elijah, while a man of like passions 
with any other human, was an eminent type of 
Christ. What he did on this occasion fore- 


shadowed to a degree some of the miracles which 


148 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


Jesus afterward performed. But even the faith 
of Elijah could not place the widow’s son beyond 
the eventual grasp of death. We repeat that 
none save God can do that. Jesus performed no 
resurrections of the Jatter kind until after He 
Himself had been raised from the dead. It was 
probably this incident in the experience of Elijah, 
and his power over physical death, which caused 
the Jews to suspect that Jesus upon the cross was 
calling upon Elijah to save his body. Jesus knew 
that it would have availed nothing to accept 
deliverance from physical death at that time, even 
if His great purpose had permitted Him to do it. 
Sooner or later His human body, like all other 
human bodies, would be claimed by death in some 
form, and it would not have served His great 
ultimate purpose if an Elijah or an Elisha had 
appeared, or had afterward arrived at Joseph’s 
tomb to call His spirit back to the same body. 


‘There is no evidence that the widow’s son did 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 149 


not again die. Furthermore the Sidonian mother 
would not have understood, nor, probably, would 
she have appreciated any but a resuscitation of 
her son’s body. Immortality had not yet been 
brought within the human grasp, nor was it until 
Jesus rose from the dead. 

Second. ‘The corpse of the man which acci- 
dentally came into contact with that of Elisha. 
II Kings 13:21. This was also a physical resur- 
rection. 

Third. ‘The son of the widow of Nain. Luke 
7:15, by Jesus. 

Fourth. ‘The ruler’s daughter, Luke 8:55, by 
Jesus. 

Fifth. Lazarus at Bethany, John 11:44, by 
Jesus. 

Sevih. \ Worcas, Actsi9 :40;) by Peter: 

Seventh. Eutychus, Acts 20:10, by Paul. 

Peter and Paul made no pretense of bestowing 


endless life. 


150 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


All of these returned to the grave. There were 
at the time no representations to the contrary. 
In the case of the three performed by Jesus they 
might be taken to show that He possessed power 
over physical life and death in any form. Par- 
ticularly was this true in the case of Lazarus. 
And since physical death was the only kind of 
which men in the flesh could at that period be 
experimentally familiar the act of Jesus was to 
them a proof that He was the Lord of physical 
life, some few reasoned from this that He could 
also bestow eternal life. If He could give life 
to a dead physical body, why not also life to a 
dead soul. “The raising of Lazarus was, however, 
a proving of all that could be experimentally 
proven prior to His own resurrection. Something 
more than any or all of these examples was needed 
to prove beyond controversy that He was “The 
Resurrection.” It is doubtful whether Jesus 


himself, until after his own resurrection, had 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 151 


power to perform the real, the “better” resurrec- 
tion. He had not yet paid the price. His veil 
of flesh had not yet been rent away from Him. 
He that held the power of death had not yet been 
unthroned. 

Of the “better resurrection” of which the au- 
thor of Hebrews speaks we have two outstanding 
examples. 

First. That of Christ Himself, which we do 
not here discuss. 

Second. ‘That of the saints who, immediately 
after the resurrection of Christ, came forth from 
their graves and appeared to many in the Holy 
City, Matt. 27:52. 

Here was a great “sign”, performed without 
warning, words, or explanation. It is recorded 
only by Matthew though the other evangelists 
must have known of it. Possibly they did not 
understand it or its tremendous ultimate signifi- 


cance, 


152 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


On the face of it Matthew’s narrative seems 
to imply that those who came forth from their 
tombs appeared in their former physical bodies, 
but the text does not say so. Men have read that 
into it. “To our mind it is more consonant with 
other Scriptures to believe that they came forth 
in bodies like that in which Jesus appeared to the 
disciples,—without that flesh and blood which 
Paul says “cannot inherit the Kingdom of Heav- 
en; that they appeared in glorified spirit-bodies 
of God’s providing, and that they went home to 
heaven as advance heralds. Possibly angels had 
been trying to look into the profound mystery of 
Christ’s visit to the earth. If so here was the 
answer, the explanation, and in a form that would 
set the courts of heaven ringing with plaudits for 
Him who had done this mighty thing. 

That they as pure spirits could have been seen 
by mortal eyes is believable when we remember 


that angels, who are likewise purely spirit, had 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 153 


often been seen by men in the flesh, as for in- 
stance those who that very morning had appeared 
to the women at the empty tomb. It is not 
necessary therefore to assume that these saints 
appeared clothed in flesh in order to make them- 
selves visible to the followers of Jesus in Jerusa- 
lem. “Chey had bodies like the resurrection body 
of Jesus. “hey came out of their graves just as 
He came out of His. Jesus had told His disciples 
in advance that “‘the sons of the resurrection” 
would “be equal to the angels.’”’ Here was the 
proof. 

If these resurrected saints appeared in the same 
kind of bodies as those possessed by angels here 
would be the infallible proof, not only of the fact 
of an accomplished resurrection, but also proof 
that what Jesus had told them was absolutely 
true. It would also show conclusively that mere 
men, such as these ancient saints, could certainly 


be reborn to a higher sphere of existence. Here 


154 Ihe Resurrection and Its Implications 


were saints clothed in light, garmented in robes 
such as the angels wear, and possessing natures 
which the grave could not longer hold. And here 
also was the forever undeniable proof that the 
resurrection by which the sinless Jesus escaped 
from the clutches of death applied also to sinful 
men long after their bodies had turned to the 
dust out of which they were created. 

On the other hand if those resurrected saints 
had appeared in bodies of flesh and blood those 
who saw and bore testimony ,of their presence 
might have suspected that their resurrection was 
but a temporary one, like that of Jairus’ daugh- 
ter for example, or that of Lazarus. “This would 
have beclouded the great spirit-reaching scope of 
Christ’s matchless work. It occurred immediately 
after the resurrection of Jesus, as though He 
might have been proving to Himself that He had 
indeed triumphed over His last enemy, death. 


‘These were trophies of His victory. ‘They were 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 155 


exhibited to those who afterward proved to be the 
“witnesses of His resurrection.” 

In any case here was the infallible proof, for 
all men and for all time, that the ancient prison 
house of death had been invaded by One who 
possessed power to break the shackles from the 
souls of many that had been long held captive 
there. Such men as Job, Abraham, Moses, Da- 
vid, Elijah, Elisha and Daniel may have been 
among them, their faith now triumphantly vin- 
dicated. One almost regrets that the names are 
not given, or that they did not delay to tell some- 
thing of their experience. Possibly they like Paul 
could not have uttered it into human ears. 

But in order that the proof be infallible it was 
wholly reasonable that the conclusive evidence of 
it be presented in a way that would appeal direct- 
ly to the senses of men and women still in the 
flesh, for the benefit of flesh-bound believers in 


all after ages. “Those resurrected were seen, and 


156 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


recognized as well. We are not told whether 
they walked on the ground as mortals do, how 
they were clothed, whether they delayed their 
visit, where they went, nor how. We are not 
told that they said anything to any one. Possibly 
their sudden release had stricken them dumb with 
amazement and joy. However, the sole fact of 
their appearance told their errand. And what a 
volume of information is contained in the mere 
fact of their having exhibited themselves, if but 
for a moment. It showed that the resurrection 
was not only for those who should die in the 
future, but also that it was retroactive back to 
the days of Eden when it was promised that the 
Seed of the woman should bruise the head of the 
serpent. It also showed that the death-penalty 
for sin was not eternal. And their mere appear- 
ance so soon after the resurrection of Jesus, while 
the rocks were yet rending and the earth quaking, 


all in the immediate locality of and almost syn- 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 157 


chronous with the resurrection of Jesus, left no 
possible doubt as to the Author of it. Their mere 
appearance bore silent and therefore the more 
unanswerable testimony to the fact that the pris- 
on door had been actually broken down, and that 
the sealed death-crypts had been opened. Here 
was conclusive evidence from beyond that death 
does not end all, and that it has no power to 
defend against the imperative summons of the 
Great Resurrector and Judge. If spiritualist 
would have proof that the dead live again, here 
it is. That proof will never be gotten through 
human incantations or wizardry. “The Witch of 
Endor was miraculously permitted to surprise 
herself but proved nothing. It is fortunate such 
power is not given to men,—that ‘‘The Tree of 
Life was fenced on every side by a flaming sword.” 

Jesus was, while human, also Divine. If there 
had not occurred this proof of His power to raise 


those long dead His own resurrection might not 


158 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


have proved all that was needed to be established. 
Men might have afterward reasoned that the res- 
urrection might mean one thing to his Divine 
Self and a different thing to mere men, that He 
might be able to do for mankind in general what 
He had done for Lazarus or Jairus’ daughter, but 
no more. In those cases the subjects needed per- 
sonal assistance, needed to be released, fed, and 
otherwise physically cared for. And in their res- 
urrected form they apparently in no wise differed 
from what they were before. Lazarus was not 
understood to be gifted with any such thing as 
undestroyable life, for the Jews even planned to 
kill him. But in the case of these resurrected 
saints there is an entire absence of any suggestion 
of such things. In a word the resurrection of 
these saints was necessary to supplement that of 
Jesus and to prevent the latter from proving 
either too much or too little. 


And withal there is between these two groups, 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 159 


those who were seen, and those who saw them, a 
most eloquent silence. They apparently observed 
each other across a chasm as yet unbridged for 
the latter. “They occupied separate worlds, the 
one physical, the other spirit; the one yet under 
the power of physical death, the other not; the 
one still filled with doubt, pain, hunger, and sor- 
row, the other absolutely free forever from all 
these. The one group continued to be hampered 
by the impediments of physical things, the other 
free to roam unhampered the limitless fields of 
joy and light. ‘The one group were still like 
Jesus the weary, foot-sore, hungry Man of Sor- 
rows, the other like Jesus the Risen One. ‘The 
difference between Lazarus after his resurrection 
and these resurrected saints was the difference 


between the two resurrections. 


160 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


OD es Dee 4 DETAR NN CS OE 


RESULTS OF WRONG INTERPRETATION OF THE 


RESURRECTION 


If the theory of a physical resurrection could 
be confined to a mere passive belief it would be 
comparatively harmless. But the theory once 
accepted vitally influences one’s whole view of the 
heaven-wrought plan and goal of salvation. It 
not only displaces the heaven of the Scriptures 
with a human fiction but it makes way for and 
invites many other blighting errors. “Theories 
springing out of it have become a sort of blinding 
obsession. “These in their second and third gene- 
ration have given rise to such grotesque cults as 
Islamism, Mormonism, and a host of other mon- 


grel beliefs. (See Note, page 236.) 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 161 


Take for example Mohammedanism, at best a 
bloody, sensual travesty upon the Christian Faith. 
It accepts a great part of the Old Testament and 
assumes to worship the very same Divine Being 
as do Christians. But it has distorted the great 
spiritual hope of the Bible and puts in its place a 
future world adjusted to the flesh and its lusts. 
The sensuous delights which it pictures necessarily 
pre-suppose the future existence of a physical 
body, without which the sensuality it offers could 
have no existence and therefore no appeal. “This 
morally insane appeal has drawn to its commun- 
ion more than one-seventh of the world’s popula- 
tion. Spirituality is lost sight of and animality is 
enthroned in its place. The barbarity of the Turk 
grows naturally out of his religion, and is a part 
of it. “Therefore it is not to be wondered at that 
he should attempt its defense and propagation by 
physical force and the sword. Read this para- 
graph from the Koran, the words of the founder 


162 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


of Islamism. It is the present day gospel of 


Mohammedanism. 


“I, therefore, the last of the prophets, am sent 
with the sword. Let those who promulgate my 
faith enter into no argument nor discussion, but 
slay all those who refuse obedience to the law. 
Whoever fights tor the true Faith, whether he 
fall or conquer, will assuredly receive a glorious 
reward. “The sword is the key of heaven and 
hell; all who draw it in the cause of the Faith 
will be rewarded with temporal advantages; every 
drop shed of their blood, every peril and hardship 
endured by them, will be registered on high as 
more meritorious than even fasting or praying. 
It they fall in battle their sins will at once be 
blotted out, and they will be transported to Para- 
dise, there to revel in eternal pleasures in the 
arms of blackeyed houris.”’ 


As we write these words there come to our 
ears from the victorious Turkish Army another 
threat of a “holy war’, assumed to be backed by 
200,000,000 devotees who have as much faith in 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 163 


the above pronouncement of Mohammed as we 
have in the words of Jesus of Nazareth. 

With a heaven dedicated to the enjoyment of 
physical appetites it holds out to its followers the 
hope that in the resurrection they will be re- 
warded with unlimited harems. Hence the culti- 
vation of animalism becomes in the present life 
the practice of what is, to the follower of the 
“Prophet”, the only true religion. We believe 
that this monstrous system of faith is one of the 
“three unclean spirits like frogs which proceed 
out of the mouth of the Dragon, the False Pro- 
phet and the Beast.” It has done more to sub- 
merge and withstand the Christian Faith and 
Christian civilization than any other single system 
of the devil’s invention. It has its seat in the 
Turkish Empire, at the cross-roads of the world, 
and is at this hour controlling the international 
policy of England, France and Italy in the Le- 


vant. No one can contemplate its recent unspeak- 


164 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


able atrocities in Armenia and Smyrna without a 
shudder. 

But, subtract from the Islamic religion the one 
element of belief in a physical resurrection, and 
it would die for want of a motive; yet so long as 
Christianity itself endorses, in another form and 
degree, that future-world materialism which 
underlies Mohammedanism what hope is there of 
overthrowing that system? 

Another example of the same ilk is found in 
Mormonism, of which latter polygamy here and 
hereafter is the main prop. It, like its suggesting 
prototype, Mohammedanism, had to pretend a new 
revelation from God to warrant it. Joseph Smith 
was the Prophet of American Mohammedanism. 
The Book of Mormon and the Koran are of the 
same class. Its remarkable growth only testifies 
to the strong appeal which sensualism has when 
clothed in the garb of religious sanctity. The 


principal difference between these two systems is 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 165 


that while the Koran reduces Jesus Christ to the 
status of a mere human teacher the Book of Mor- 
mon makes of Him a sensualist, with a harem 
composed of Mary, Martha and other women. 
Without the concept of a bodily resurrection, 
whereat the male “saints” shall have exclusive 
power to call up their “sealed” earthly female 
consorts, “the Church of Christ of the Latter 
Day Saints” could not exist. “That its whole sys- 
tem of faith rests on the hallucinations of an 
ignorant horse-trader makes no difference. Any 
religion which panders to the appetites of the flesh 
will seek its justification and propagation by phys- 
ical means. “The “Mountain Meadow Massacre” 
was simply a letting loose in Utah of the spirit 
and motives of Mohammed. ‘The fact that Mor- 
monism now holds the balances of political power 
in eleven states of this country is, in its last 
analysis, due to the preaching of a physical resur- 


rection to a future physical heaven. 


166 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


Those who visit Salt Lake City may find on 
the hillside, overlooking the former residence of 
Brigham Young and his fourteen wives, his grave. 
‘That grave is supposed to be protecting his physi- 
cal body for its future resurrection. Over it is a 
great stone slab, in turn guarded by a stout iron 
railing, the whole walled in against possible theft 
or molestation. If that body is wanting on the 
resurrection morning his fourteen wives will not 
be called up. What a travesty! 

An interesting heresy trial occurred within a 
few weeks. According to the Literary Digest 
Bishop William M. Brown, of the Protestant 
Episcopal Church, was tried at Cleveland, Ohio, 
for heresy. ‘The court was composed of eight 
other Bishops of highest standing in that church. 
While testifying in his own defense he stated that 
“astronomy had upset his orthodoxy altogether.” 
He stated that he had set his heart on getting to 


heaven, but that in view of the physical resurrec- 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 167 


tion in which his church categorically believes, he 
had asked himself the reasonable question: 
C is 1 . ° 

How could I go through space for millions of 
years, at 240 degrees below zero, even if I trav- 
eled at the rate of light, 186,000 miles per second, 
and get to heaven.” 


It is significant that at the beginning of this 
ereat ecclesiastical trial, so important that special 
reporting wires were run to the court room, 
Bishop Brown joined with the judges, who later 
convicted and expelled him, in solemnly repeating 
the Apostles Creed. ‘This Creed among other 
things contains this :—“‘I believe in the (physical) 
resurrection of the body.” 

In a word Bishop Brown for substance asserted 
on the stand that it was a belief in the above 
quoted sentence from that ancient Creed of his 
church, which had made a heretic of him. He 
further stated in his testimony that when he had 
found himself getting into doctrinal difficulty with 


168 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


his church, he had consulted, among others, a 
brother Bishop, and that that brother had point- 
edly reproved him for not knowing and taking 
refuge in the “Einstein Theory,’—‘“which theo- 
ry,’ the brother Bishop told him, “would teach 
him that he could go somewhere without going 
anywhere.” If it were not for the tragedy of the 
trial it would be a comedy. ‘The eight judges 
voted unanimously for deposing the too realistic 
churchman. 

The literature of orthodox Christianity is ev- 
erywhere saturated with a quasi-endorsement of 
this materialistic view. It is not in any con- 
troversial spirit but rather for the purpose of 
setting Scriptural truth and naked error squarely 
face to face that we make reference to some cre- 
dalisms, ancient and modern. We believe that 
they, unconsciously, obscure the hope that fired 
the soul of the great Apostle. At best they are 
trying to make old bottles hold the new wine. 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 169 


They are in a way still embalming mummies, like 
the Egyptians of four thousand years ago. 

In an Easter number of the Sunday School 
‘Times, for example, there is raised for editorial 
reply the categorical question:—‘‘Are our bodies 
to go to heaven?” After a somewhat lengthy 
argument the answer is summed up in these 
words :—‘“The physical bodies of believers are to 
be raised from the dead and are to be dwelt in by 
believers in the Kingdom of God.” 

In order to substantiate this view it assumes 
that Jesus, the Forerunner, took to heaven with 
Him the same material body of flesh and bones 
in which He was crucified, and that therefore 
His followers will do likewise. ‘This reasoning 
would be good if there were any Scriptural proof 
that Jesus did so ascend in a physical body. But 
there is not a word in the New Testament to 
prove this. It is true that Jesus said to the dis- 


ciples: ‘‘A spirit does not have flesh and bones as 


170 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


you see me have.” But this dces not prove any- 
thing except that Jesus was upon that passing 
occasion doing everything possible to convince 
doubters like Thomas. ‘There were some doubt- 
ers even among the five hundred who saw Him 
on the mountain in Galilee, near the end of His 
stay on earth. He knew precisely the difficulty 
with .them and He attempted to remove it by 
assuming for such occasions a physical body, a 
replica of the one He had before. 

One readily gains from the editorial above 
referred to the impression that the question is 
raised largely for the ulterior purpose of creating 
an inferential presumption in favor of Premil- 
lennialism. ‘The inference clearly is that if the 
redeemed will, at their resurrection, be reinvested 
with their former “earthly tabernacles” it is but 
reasonable to assume that Jesus will meet and 
receive them in a like material body, or vice versa. 


And indeed we frankly admit the logic of these 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 171 


assumptions. If Jesus went to heaven in a physi- 
cal body His saints will do the same. But if He 
did not, they will not. In the last analysis there- 
fore the whole Premillennial doctrine rests upon 
what we believe is a grossly mistaken view of the 
resurrection; for if the resurrection be not a 
rising again of the material bodies of the dead 
Premillennialism has not an inch of ground on 
which to stand. 

‘These theories, false as we believe them to be, 
are not only of great future moment, but they 
have also a present inescapable force in determin- 
ing every day conduct. One cannot accept the 
Premillennial theory without letting it influence 
his attitude toward the great practical problems 
of social life. His very notion of what the 
Kingdom of Christ is or is to be, here or hereafter, 
will inevitably be molded by what he believes 
concerning the nature of Christ’s return. If it 


be believed that that return is to be a physical 


172 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


one, to take physical control of the earth, before 
His Millennial Kingdom can be manifested, why 
should men spend time and effort preparing the 
way for it? Jesus will do all that when He 
arrives. It is easier to sit down and wait. Such 
a program not only argues that the Spirit of 
Christ 1s not equal to the task of converting the 
world, but it makes the redemption of the world 
cataclysmic, outward, materialistic. 

Professor Rall, in his late admirable book, 
“Premillennialism and the Christian Hope,’ apt- 
ly says:—‘‘This doctrine conceives of the coming 
Kingdom in terms of Oriental autocracy, the 
dominance of sheer physical power. Premillen- 
nialism is not an unrelated theory at one point in 
theology, but is a complete doctrinal system, one 
that cuts deeper than the differences which sepa- 
rate the great Protestant bodies to-day.” 

It presumes that mere material force, or the 


exhibition of it, can create righteousness and that 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 173 


it is possible for the physical to give birth to the 
spiritual. It would hold on to that through which 
sin entered the world, that which ever since has 
carried on a constant warfare against the Spirit, 
—that in which Paul said he had no confidence, 
and that of which Jesus Himself said: ‘The flesh 
profiteth nothing.” (John 6:63). 

A recent issue of the “Christian Century” says: 
“A. scandal of division threatens Chinese Mis- 
sions. “here are in the Protestant camp two 
distinct groups, one emphasizing the second physi- 
cal coming of Christ, and, therefore, the futility 
of many items of educational and philanthropic 
work: and the other, adhering to a Gospel of 
social service. It is a struggle between the Pre- 
millennialists and the less literal group of the 
Church, transferred to foreign soil, and the effect 
upon the native population seems to be what 
neither would wish. 


“With the missionary problem in China be- 


174 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


coming more difficult by reason of a changing 
attitude of the Chinese themselves, the tragedy of 
this divisive movement within the Christian group 
is marked. With devotees traveling over China, 
spending ten minutes between trains to declare 
that ‘Jesus is coming’ the intelligent Chinaman 
may be expected to mock. He has no background 
in his thinking for a catastrophic second coming. 
The denominational leaders may continue to get 
up big ‘drives’ as a means of unifying the Chris- 
tian forces, but what the Christian Church of 
to-day needs more than anything else is some 
honest thinking on fundamentals.” 

But the Sunday School ‘Times is by no means 
primarily responsible for these Premillennial views 
nor by any means their only protagonist. Chris- 
tian thought is honycombed with them. The 
theological basis for them was unconsciously laid 
long ago in orthodox creeds, confessions, and in 


hypostatized doctrinal statements. ‘Their authors 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 175 


could not have foreseen, perhaps, that the doc- 
trine of a physical resurrection would eventuate 
in that system of physical theology which must 
make room for Premillennialism and the many 
other vagaries which have grown out of it. 

The ““Thirty-Nine Articles” of the Church of 
Iengland declares: “Christ did truly rise again 
from death and took again His body, with flesh, 
bones, and all things pertaining to the perfection 
of man’s nature, wherewith He ascended into 
heaven, and there sitteth until He returns to 
judge all men at the last day.” (See Article 4.) 

The Westminster Assembly of Divines also, in 
their answer to Question 52, Larger Catechism, 
says :—‘‘Christ was exalted in his resurrection, in 


and 





that, not having seen corruption in death 
having the very same body in which he suffered, 
with the essential properties thereof, really united 
to his soul, He rose again from the dead the third 


day by His own power.” ‘The only Scripture 


176 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


proof given for the above statement is Luke 24— 
39, where Jesus declares that ‘‘a spirit hath not 
flesh and bones as ye see me have.” Seemingly it 
did not occur to those who cited this proof ref- 
erence that this use of Jesus’ words would just 
as readily prove that Jesus was not a Spirit at all. 

Again Question 86, concerning the communion 
of the saints in glory with Christ replies: “Im- 
mediately after death . . . their souls are made 
perfect in holiness, and are received into the 
highest heavens, where they behold the face of 
God in light and glory, waiting for the full 
redemption of their bodies, which even in death 
continue united to Christ, and rest in their graves 
as in their beds, till at the last day they be again 
united to their souls.” “The Scripture proof given 
for this statement is Job 19:26. “The Revised 
Version however turns that passage of Scripture 
directly against the above doctrine. 


Question 87, concerning the Resurrection, re- 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 177 


plies: “The self same bodies of the dead which 
were laid in the grave, being then again united to 
their souls forever, shall be raised up by the pow- 
er of Christ.” ‘The Scripture proof cited for this 
declaration, which we notice elsewhere at length, 
does not anywhere say that the self same bodies 
will be raised. 

The same conception of the future state is: 
voiced in the so called ‘Apostles’ Creed.” ‘That 
ancient baptismal formula, however, bears no evi- 
dence that the Apostles ever saw or endorsed it. 
Many, through their reverence for that which is 
ancient, are influenced by it in their thinking. 
But these Creeds are not infallible. They can- 
not claim authority except as they are founded 
upon what is revealed in the inspired Word of 
God. Our contention here is not that it is wholly 
incredible that God should raise dead physical 
bodies but that the above statements are not 


warranted by Scripture. Let us briefly analyze 


178 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


them. ‘Taken together they assume these physical 
facts to be continually present from the date of 
the death of each human body until the time of 
its resurrection. ; 

First. A grave in which the body was de- 
posited. Is it commonly true that graves remain 
undisturbed? Millions of bodies, however, have 
had no graves at all, and other millions of graves 
have been excavated and the earth composing them 
scattered and re-scattered, the same materials 
perhaps forming other graves. Can we possibly 
conceive that the resurrection of the bodies de- 
posited in them is conditioned upon the reassem- 
bling of their original receptacles? How can a 
physical body rest in a physical bed which does 
not exist? Or one which perhaps never did 
exist ? 

Second. ‘These creedal statements imply the 
continuous organized corporal presence, some- 


where of each physical body. If this implication 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 179 


is based upon fact there ought to be somewhere 
some evidence of it. Millions of bodies have 
been completely destroyed (or as Paul put it,. 
dissolved”), at the time of death; burned, fed 
to beasts or otherwise absolutely anihilated as 
organized physical bodies. “The decomposed ele- 
ments of those buried bodies have been taken up 
by plants, going thence into the composition of 
other human bodies, or those of beasts, in endless 
cycle. Can we believe that their resurrection 
depends upon the reassembling of these identical 
physical atoms or elements? What if the same 
identical atoms of carbon, lime, iron and water 
have in the meantime successively entered into 
the composition of a dozen or a hundred other 
dead human bodies? ‘These statements visualize 
a resurrection which is indeed “incredible.” Nei- 
ther Jesus, Paul, John or Peter say one word 


about the care or preservation of the dead human 


body. 


180 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


We prefer to go straight to Paul for a credible 
definition. We do not find anywhere in the 
Scriptures a direct statement to the effect that 
Jesus took a body of flesh and bones to heaven, 
nor are we anywhere taught that when He rose 
from the dead He had “the very same body in 
which He suffered.”’ That is merely an inference. 
On the contrary, Paul draws a perfectly clear 
distinction between Christ’s body of “humilia- 
tion,’ that in which He suffered, that body which 
was buried, and “His glorious body,” the one in 
which He appeared to himself and to John. The 
blood, which was the very life of that physical 
body, was shed, poured out, not in any meta- 
‘phorical sense, but actually shed—“for many for 
the remission of sins.” It was literally spilled 
upon and absorbed by the ground, and unless by 
a miracle, of which we have no slightest intima- 


tion, it could not have been collected from the air 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 181 


and soil and returned to His veins—or buried 
with Him in Joseph’s tomb. 

Not a few able expositors, including Barnes, 
feeling it necessary to account for the “empty 
tomb,” believing that that empty tomb is zeces- 
sary to prove the fact of the resurrection, and yet 
admitting that Christ’s Ascension body was not a 
physical one, have invented the theory that be- 
tween the date of the resurrection and the time 
of His ascension the physical body of Jesus under- 
went a gradual metamorphic change. It is un- 
necessary to point out the fact that there is in 
Scripture no ground for such a suggestion. On 
the very day of His resurrection Jesus ‘“‘vanished”’ 
out of sight of the two disciples at Emmaus. He 
also did the like that same evening in the upper 
room at Jerusalem. “Those vanishments were, as 
it turned out, temporary ones. Otherwise they 
were the same in character as His disappearance 


on the morning of the ascension. 


182. The Resurrection and Its Implications 


Remarking briefly upon this trumped up the- 
cry the empty tomb was not necessary to prove 
the resurrection and did not prove it. “The Chief 
Priests countered at once with the like absurdity 
that the disciples had stolen the body while the 
soldiers slept. “The proof of the resurrection was 
positive, not negative; and this, and the character 
of it, which ts the all-important thing, were 
proved beyond all quibble by what He showed 
himself to be. The “many infallible proofs’ which 
Peter refers to were not negative but positive and 
among the greatest of these was what He could 


do and did do with His resurrection body. 


Transubstantiation 


‘The assumption that His poured-out blood was 
at the time literally and physically recovered, was 
returned to His body and, for all future time, 
retained by Him, and by Him taken to heaven, 


involves an absurdity, if not a contradiction, that 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 183 


has led to endless confusion. This assumption, 
taken with the Apostles’ Creed, paves the way for 
such errors as the doctrine of Transubstantiation 
(“the change of the whole substance of the bread, 
and the whole substance of the wine into the body 
and blood of Christ’’), in the administration of 
the Lord’s Supper.. This doctrine, held by the 
Roman Catholic Church, and by many others, by 
implication turns the sacrament into a continuous- 
ly repeated miraculous sacrifice. Peter (I Peter 
3:18) says, as if to confute in advance this antici- 
pated error :—‘‘Christ also suffered for sins once, 
the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might 
bring us to God; being put to death in the flesh, 
but made alive in the spirit, in which also He 
went and preached unto the spirits in prison.” 
And Paul (Romans 6:9) says: “Knowing that 
Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more 
—death hath no more dominion over Him. For 
the death that he died, He died unto sin once for 


184 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


all; but the life that He liveth He liveth unto 
God.” The sacrificial work of Christ was com- 
pletely accomplished when He cried out, “‘It is 
finished.” 

But the doctrine of Transubstantiation, based 
upon the assumption of a physical survival, a 
physical ascension and the physical continuity of 
Christ’s body, in effect asks us to believe that in 
partaking of the Lord’s Supper we also partake 
physically and literally of the material compo- 
nents of the fleshly body of Christ. “This act we 
cannot possibly perform unless that physical body 
somewhere or other exists, or unless it is even 
now and continuously capable of being ‘‘divided”’ 
among the communicants at each observance of 
the ordinance. Furthermore it is in such case 
necessary for us to believe that, at each observ- 
ance, blood enough to distribute is either miracu- 
lously created by the administrator at the time, 


or is directly drawn from His veins. ‘This is 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 185 


asking us, in either case, to believe that the bread 
is really human flesh and that the wine is actually 
blood 


sis deny. Men may indeed pretend or assume 





which our senses and all chemical analy- 


and assert that they believe this, while in fact 
they do not. This in reality makes of the com- 
municants prevaricators about a very sacred thing; 
and all because the above doctrine attempts to 
give a physical meaning to words which Christ 
said “are spirit and they are life.” ‘The wine 
which Jesus gave to the disciples, at the institu- 
tion of the Supper, was simply the blood of 
grapes, physically nothing more. Had He so 
desired he could have converted it, by a miracle, 
into blood, but it would have added no further 
significance to the act if He had done so. It 
would not even then have been blood from His 
veins. His blood, all of it, was still flowing in 
Flis arteries when He uttered these words. 


The ‘“‘Scape-goat’, a most significant type of 


188 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


last analysis ‘they stood for that body and that 
blood which is in very fact the “true meat’ and 
the “true drink,” by which the spirits of Christ’s 
spirit children are nourished. ‘They were that 
body and that blood of which Jesus spoke when 
He said: “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of 
Man, and drink His blood, ye have not life in 
yourselves. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh 
my blood abideth in Me and I in Him... . 
This is the bread which came down out of heaven. 
He that eateth this bread shall live for- 
ever.” (John 6:53). Jesus’ physical body did 
not come down out of heaven. It was born of 
the Virgin Mary, so He must have meant some 
other body. And as though He was referring to 
other than an earthly thing He said to Nicode- 
mus: “‘No one hath ascended into heaven but He 
that descended out of heaven.” 
True that literal body and His literal blood 


were on the morrow to be actually offered, but 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 189 


that physical body was not yet broken and its 
blood was not yet spilled when He uttered the 
words. ‘The body that was broken on the mor- 
row and the blood that was poured out, were 
materially real. But behind and beyond them 
was what has been called the “mystical body of 
Christ.’ The word ‘mystical’ is not Scrip- 
tural word at all. It conveys the idea of unreali- 
ty like the word “mist” or “insubstantial.” In 
none of His talks about himself did Jesus use any 
such word and we have no warrant for doing sO. 
On the contrary He labored often to clear from 
the minds of men that very misleading conception 
of Himself. That spirit-body which He offered 
as ‘“‘meat indeed” was just as real, more real if 
that is possible, than the physical body that went 
to the grave. His physical blood was poured out 
upon and mingled with the physical dust and His 
physical body was borne to a physical sepulcher 


and never again seen. It went out to the invisible, 


190 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


the unknown wilderness like the scapegoat. But 
from that grave came forth that “celestial” spirit 
body, the one that Paul refers to as “His glori- 
ous body.” ‘The grave was a dressing room 
where the physical was put off and the spirtual 
put on, and in this Christ illustrated exactly what 
takes place with believers. “This latter “body” of 
Christ is the “bread of God that cometh down 
from heaven,” the ‘‘flesh” which He told His 
disciples He would give for the life of the world 
(John 6:51). “That flesh and blood can be di- 
vided, eaten and drunk without even the sugges- 
tion of cannibalism. It is the true bread, the 
“Manna”, the great ‘“What is it?” of the Chris- 
tian faith. | 

That wonderful address which Jesus made to 
the half-believing Jews that followed Him across 
the sea to Capernaum (John 6) was not under- 
stood by them at that time nor is it yet by many 
Christians. “They had seen the miracle of the 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 191 


loaves and fishes of the day before and had 
actually eaten and digested the food which was 
so miraculously multiplied. They realized that the 
miracle was somewhat lke but infinitely greater 
than that of the “manna” in the wilderness. It 
was multiplied in the dividing, created in the 
consumption. And when Jesus indicated to them 
that the bread which they had eaten the day be- 
fore was, with all that, but a mere type or sym- 
bolism of a better bread, and was by comparison 
not worth striving for, they could not understand 
Him. He then tells them repeatedly that His 
“body” is that bread, but despite all His efforts 
to make the matter clear to the contrary they 
persisted in construing His words to mean His 
literal physical body. ‘They finally come back with 
the question: “How can this man give us His 
flesh to eat?” Many of his disciples joined the 
Jews in stumbling at His words and some of 


them “went back and walked no more with 


192 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


Him.” But as if in answer He tells them that 
the flesh they hud! in mind, His literal flesh, 
“profiteth nothing.” “It is the spirit that giveth 
life.’ “He that eateth,, He shall live by Me, 
eeu TOrEversn 

In common with the Jews and the disciples of 
that day many Christians persist in interpreting 
these words as hyperbolical. They think He did 
not mean what he said. When He spoke of 
“meat indeed” and of “drink indeed” they think 
He did not indeed mean anything of that sort. 
They cannot grasp the fact that He had then and 
has now a spirit body of which their spirits can 
eat and live just as certainly as the five thousand 
ate and were filled by the seaside. “To them His 
words are merely a figure of speech, and at best 
their perception stops at the figure and refuses 
the spirit substance that lies beyond it; or else 
they take the only other alternative and try to 
believe that Jesus was all the while verily speak- 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 193 


ing of that body of flesh which was nailed to the 
cross and was afterward placed in Joseph’s tomb. 

In this way the Christian world comes short 
of apprehending what is perhaps the greatest and 
most vitally real and important fact of the Chris- 
tian faith. ‘The spirit or the soul which does not 
actually partake of Christ’s spirit will starve to 
death, just as certainly as will a physical body 
which receives no food. Even the manna that 
God sent down from heaven for the Hebrews, 
being a physical substance, melted, bred worms 
and stank, a thing which would have taken place 
in the case of Christ’s body had not God taken it, 
—as in the cases of Enoch and Elijah. It was 
only a far-off symbol of the true bread, yet, as 
Jesus explained, it was not the “true bread.” 
‘Those who ate the manna died. It was not diving 
bread. It did not give life. But there is a “bread”’ 
of which if a human soul eats, it will in the eating 


partake of food that will become part of itself, 


194 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


that will live in it, and will cause it to live 
eternally. Faith which is not founded upon ac- 
tual fact is dead. Being merely imagination it 
profits nothing. Jesus meant exactly what He 
said. He was talking of profound realities. He 
had a body which could not be nailed to any 
wooden cross, and blood that could not either 
stagnate or decay. “These were the “meat indeed” 
and the “drink indeed”’ of which He spoke. ‘These 
He symbolized by His physical body in order to 
bring an apprehension of His profound inner 
meaning within their grasp. 

A spirit world, conceived of in accordance with 
the Scriptures, while it does not abate, but rather 
increases the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heav- 
en, eliminates many of the contradictory inter- 
pretations with which the different schools of 
theology have mystified the Christian faith. “The 
human mind is so constituted of God that it is 


utterly impossible for it to accept and believe, at 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 195 


the same time, two opposing statements of con- 
scious fact. If the feat is attempted the inevitable 
result is that state of doubt and uncertainty 
which the Word of God condemns. Men can 
believe in that which is supernatural, or that 
which is above material nature, but they cannot 
believe contradictions, nor can they believe both 
of two statements which do not each make room 
for the other. “To ask them to do so is to sub- 
stitute a vague transcendentalism for rationality. 
It challenges reason at its very source. “That is 
precisely what some of these ancient doctrinal 
statements do. Faith can accept things which it 
cannot see but it was never intended to supplant 
rationality nor to found convictions either upon 
fictions of the mind nor upon irreconcilable state- 
ments. It is true, as we have before noted, that 
there is in our wonderful religion a field into 
which human Science, either true or false, cannot 


enter. “That field lies outside of and beyond the 


196 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


horizon of physical phenomena, fact, and mundane 
experience. Science thas no business there. But 
there is a field occupied by religion which does 
lie within that horizon of human knowledge and 
reason, a field of which the scientific spirit does 
and must take knowledge. It is the field of 
known fact, of perfectly conscious human experi- 
ence, and to introduce transcendentalism into this 
field, and to assert contradictions of fact there, 
is to discredit the whole Christian Faith. ‘To 
expose the spirit truths of the Scriptures to this 
none too pious scientific spirit is to furnish it with 
a football to kick at. The Christian faith is 
founded upon eternal and immovable facts, just 
as is all true science, and therefore any inter- 
pretation of the former which denies this inevi- 
tably draws the scoffing of the latter, and deserves 


to do so. 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 197 


CHAPTER NINE 


‘THE RESURRECTION AND THE RETURN 
OF CHRIST 


That Jesus will come again there is not any 
doubt. His coming is that great epochal event 
toward which the whole present order moves 
rapidly. That coming will be’ to a universal 
judgment, and a restoration of all things (Acts 
3:21). And He will come in the manner that 
was foretold by the angels at the time of His 
departure from Olivet, that was foretold by Him- 
self, that is foretold by Paul and John. ‘This 
Jesus who was received up from you into heaven 
shall so come in like manner as ye beheld Him 


going into heaven.” (Acts 1:11). 


198 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


Premillennialism bases everything on this text, 
and on the word ‘manner’; and in order to 
justify its theory of a physical return of Christ, it 
avers that the word “manner” has reference to 
the kind of a body in which He departed, perhaps 
also to the direction which He took, and even to 
the place from which He ascended. And if there- 
fore it can be shown that Jesus did not ascend in 
a body of flesh, blood and bones, the whole in- 
vented theory falls to the ground. 

As to the exact manner of Jesus’ ascension we 
have very meager details. Let us recall that of 
the four Evangelists only two, Matthew and 
John, were actually present at the ascension, and 
that both are absolutely silent about it. ‘The 
great importance of the event, and the fact of 
His departure out of this world suggests that if 
there were indeed present any visible or record- 
able circumstances these historians would have 


described them. “Iwo other New ‘Testament 


Lhe Resurrection and Its Implications 199 


writers, Peter and James, were present, yet in 
their Epistles they say nothing about the manner, 
or attending circumstances of the ascension. 

Another Evangelist, Mark, who was not pres- 
ent at the ascension passes by the event with the 
simple statement that “He was received up into 
heaven and sat down at the right hand of God.” 
Some of the older manuscripts of Mark’s Gospel 
omit even this statement. Even if the statement 
belongs to Mark’s original account he is but re- 
cording what Jesus had foretold of himself. If the 
observable circumstances or “manner’’ of the as- 
cension were vital to the record why does he not 
mention them? 

Luke, who is the only one of the Evangelists 
who records any of the circumstances, says that 
“A cloud received Him out of their sight.” But 
Luke was not present, not an eye witness of the 
ascension. Paul, in I Tim. 3:16, says that “He 


was received up into glory” and this is, for 


200 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


substance just what Luke writes, and it embraces 
the only essential fact. Luke’s statement may 
therefore have been copied from Mark, or from 
Paul’s words, or may have been coined from what 
Jesus said to the women on the resurrection 
morning—‘I ascend to my Father.” Or it may 
have been drawn from that other reference to His 
resurrection which Jesus had made, ‘‘What and if 
ye shall see that Son of Man ascend up where He 
was before?” 

All the Evangelists must have known of this 
post-resurrection prophecy as well as of several 
others of like import, and there remains therefore 
no question about the fact itself. In any case the 
principal part of Mark’s statement, viz., that “He 
was seated at the right hand of God,” was not an 
observable occurrence. "The statement of Luke 
that “a cloud received Him out of their sight” 
may have been, to an absentee, an inferential one, 


for any observable body going continuously up- 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 201 


ward from the earth would naturally disappear 
at the limit of their eyesight. ‘That there was a 
visible body with the disciples on their way to 
Olivet “over against Bethany” there is no ques- 
tion. ‘That it was Jesus’ body there is no doubt. 
That he blessed them at His farewell there re- 
mains no doubt. ‘That it was a formal leave- 
taking there is no doubt. ‘That that visible body 
did not accompany the disciples back to Jerusa- 
lem there is no doubt, but that that body was a 
physical one there is no conclusive evidence in any 
of the accounts or statements. ‘The fact is Luke’s 
record might be paraphrased to read that “He 
was received up into invisibility and sat down at 
the right hand of the Invisible God,” all without 
changing its essential meaning a particle. What 
appeared to be and was, a physical body had been 
assumed for the occasion, and with the occasion 
served it vanished. 

As elsewhere stated we believe that His ascen- 


202 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


sion, so far as there was any external observable 
manifestation of it, was simply a departure into 
invisibility. He formally withdrew from their 
physical sight, touch and conscious presence just 
as He had long before gone up from Abraham’s 
presence. After His resurrection He was mani- 
fest to His friends and followers, and to them 
only, and not even to them all the while. He was 
not so manifested to the world at large. In this 
He answered the question of Judas, ‘Lord, what 
is come to pass that thou will manifest thyself 
unto us and not unto the world?” (John 14:22). 
On several of these post-resurrection occasions 
He was seen by his friends in Jerusalem, and on 
these visits He may have indeed invisibly rubbed 
elbows as it were on the streets of Jerusalem with 
Annas, Herod, Pilate, or members of the San- 
hedrin. But there is no hint that after his resur- 
rection His presence was, on any of these occa- 


sions, revealed to any save to His friends, and for 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 203 


the very simple reason that they alone had the 
spirit-vision that would enable them to see Him. 
These enemies did not now belong in the world 
in which He lived, moved and had His being. 
Even if they had been given the will and liberty 
to do so they could not have even touched Him. 

Prior to His ascension He had promised to be © 
always with His witnesses as they proclaimed the 
Good News. We may confidently assume that 
He made that promise good, and that He was in 
spirit as really present with His disciples as they 
returned from the Ascension as He was when 
leading them out to the Mount of Olives, only 
that He was now definitely and finally beyond 
their sense of physical discernment. And _ this 
great promise extended to all His witnesses unto 
the ages of the ages. What shall we say there- 
fore of the testimony of those who claim that His 
return and presence, in order to be real must be 


a physical one? Is there not danger here of testi- 


204. The Resurrection and Its Implications 


fying to what is not true? And may we not 
venture the further suggestion that this kind of 
testimony is only mystifying a world that has lost 
its way? For it is in effect denying that He has 
fulfilled or is fulfilling now His promise of a 
constant presence. We have referred to some 
of the many isms which have sprung from this 
misconception, and which, in their very nature 
could not have arisen if the truth had been told. 
The Jews, at Christ’s first coming looked for the 
establishment of a physical kingdom and we have 
but to look about us to see what a terrible blun- 
der they made. “Those who will have no other 
than a second physical coming are, we believe, 
simply repeating that disastrous mistake. 

We make a most gross mistake when we try to 
make all heavenly things fit into our small earthly 
apprehension. ‘There are some things even upon 
this earth that can only be discerned by spiritual 


senses, and the Risen Christ is their exemplifica- 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 205 


tion and personification. If conversions were now 
dependent upon a physical sight of a physical 
Christ who would be saved ? 

Jesus Himself illustrates or describes His re- 
turn as far as it is possible to do so in similitudes 
of earth. He likens it to a flash of lightning, 
“that cometh forth from the East and is seen 
even unto the West. So shall the coming of the 
Son of Man be.” (Matt. 24:27). ‘This indicates 
that it will be instantaneous and everywhere pres- 
ent at the same instant, a thing spiritually possible 
but a thing physically impossible. We say im- 
possible, not from God’s standpoint but from the 
human. ‘To make it possible the human race 
would at that time, need organs of physical sight 
that could either see half way round the physical 
earth or pierce its diameter. 

There is perhaps no other thing in nature by 
which He could have so well conveyed the idea 


of universal suddenness. An electric current of 


206 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


comparatively low voltage will go round the earth 
in less than a second. A flash of lightning with 
its incomparably higher voltage would be instan- 
taneous. Except by a complete suspension of 
natural law a material person cannot be physically 
visible or present at more than one place at the 
same time. ‘To claim that the literal Mount of 
Olives, or a person standing on it, could be seen 
from all parts of the physical earth at the same 
instant of time is an absurdity of monumental 
proportions. No one can believe it without cast- 
ing all earthly knowledge of God’s physical laws, 
all reason, experience, and common sense to the 
winds. It is like quoting Baron Munchausen or 
the Arabian Nights’ Entertainment as authorities 
on Physical Science. 

Is it therefore only in the spirit sense that 
omnipresence can exist, or, rather, the term omni- 
presence can be applied only to God, who is spir- 
it? “This was one of the terms by which the Old 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 207 


‘Testament prophets frequently designated Him 
(Jer. 23:23 and 24). And to localize the return 
of One who “fills heaven and earth’ to a single 
spot is to fairly deny His divinity. It conceives 
of His incarnation as being a perpetual humila- 
tion to the limitations of the flesh, and of his 
glorification as being something far beneath what 
He had before he took our nature. 

In scaling a high mountain in mid-summer, 
and while we were flooded with brightest sun- 
light, instantly, and without warning we found 
ourselves enveloped in a snow cloud so dense we 
could see but a few feet. A few steps up the 
path our heads emerged from the cloud as though 
we were coming up out of a lake; and as far as 
the eye could carry we saw an undulating sea of 
dazzling snow afloat in the air beneath us. “That 
snow cloud did not have to come over us from 
elsewhere. “The air was almost motionless. It 


simply developed from the atmosphere surround- 


208 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


ing us, doubtless produced by some change in 
temperature or electrical conditions. “The inci- 
dent suggests how the Omnipresent Jehovah, 
upon the striking of the hour that limits His 
enveloping mercy, can show to all men every- 
where, in an instant, the face of stern justice and 
make them hear the call to judgment, the fact 
which until that instant had been everywhere 
present but hidden by His waiting grace. 

We believe then that the angels, in promising 
that Jesus would return “in like manner” had 
primary reference to what Jesus was at the time 
of His ascension, a spirit being and not a physical 
one. And so far from telling the disciples that 
He would return in physical form they meant 
exactly the opposite. ‘They would assure the 
disciples that His resurrection character, as they 
had witnessed it during the previous weeks, was 
not a temporary manifestation merely, but would 


continue for all time; that He would not go back 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 209 


to the form He had when He trudged back and 
forth from Galilee to Jerusalem, foot-sore, hun- 
gry, and thirsty. “They would say to these wist- 
ful gazers that He will reappear out of this 
physically invisible realm to which He went just 
as He had but now disappeared. And that this is 
a correct interpretation seems certain for they 
gave the disciples this promise as a reason why 
they should no longer stand futilly gazing up 
into the physical clouds. ‘Vhey need not wait on 
Mount Olivet, for no matter where they would 
be they would see Him just as surely as if they 
waited there. This is the way John understood 
the words for he later went far away into Asia 
Minor. So Peter also, for he went far in the op- 
posite direction, to Babylon, Paul to Rome and 
probably to Spain, and all the Apostles scattered 
abroad. And there is no intimation whatever, in 
any subsequent history of the apostles that any of 
them ever went back to Olivet to watch for their 


310. The Resurrection and Its Implications 


Lord’s promised, and at that time, constantly 
expected return. It would therefore seem clear 
that none of the Apostles or others present even 
thought of a physical return, and what they 
thought, said, did, or wrote would certainly have 
reflected the meaning they attached to this great 
promise of the angels. | 
We have in another connection referred to 
Paul’s first apprehension of Jesus on the Damas- 
cus road. All of his Epistles should be read in 
the light of that experience. It interpreted to 
him the reality of the Christian’s great eternal 
hope. ‘That first glimpse had blinded him physi- 
cally. “Fhe shock smote him bodily to the earth. 
For days. lhe was so overcome, so amazed, that he 
neither ate a bite, nor drank a drop. “That vision 
transformed Paul spiritually, and. if the world 
could but visualize what Paul saw it too would 
be transformed: “The world can have that vision 


any time it will look for it in the right place. 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 211 


And any Christian teacher who will do aught to 
obscure or blur that vision is, we believe, throw- 
ing a smoke screen over a world that Jesus would 
save by the effulgence of His glory. 

John, the beloved disciple, on the Isle of Pat- 
mos afterward saw Jesus in His glorified form 
(Rev. 1:13). This was not a mere disembodied 
appearance, as of a ghostly apparition. It was 
not an Imaginative picture of a phantasy. It was 
an actual sight of Jesus Himself, in His real 
spiritually tangible body. What simulations John 
uses in his attempt to convey his impressions, hair 
like snow for whiteness, eyes like flames of fire 
for brightness, feet like burnished brass for glow- 
ing beauty, a voice like the musical murmur of 
many waters, a countenance like the mid-day sun. 
What similitudes! But the descriptions them- 
selves, be it noted, are only approximate like- 
nesses. ‘[Lhey are not an actual description of 


Jesus. It was not possible, in language of the 


212 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


earth, to describe One who dwells in unapproach- 
able light. It is a’statement of mere similitudes 
or similarities from which each reader must con- 
struct the picture. 

No wonder John fell down at His feet as one 
dead; not, we may suppose, with fright so much 
as with inexpressable admiration, for John had 
that love which casts out fear. He had known 
Jesus well in His earthly body, in pre-crucifixion 
days; but Jesus was now manifesting Himself in 
His glorified body. ‘The contrast between the 
two bodies overwhelmed him. He had seen Jesus 
many times during the days of His humiliation, 
days when He carried the likeness of sinful flesh, 
days when His visage was marred with sorrow 
and suffering. He had been with Him on His 
many journeys. He had seen those hands and 
feet torn with the cruel nails, that hair matted 
with blood from the crown of thorns. What a 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 213 


contrast! And that contrast explained to him 
again the resurrection. 

He had also been with and had seen Him on 
the Mount of Transfiguration when for an hour 
the indescribable brightness of His Divine nature 
shone out through His human physique. But here 
he sees the embodiment not only of the glorified 
Christ, but also of glorified humanity, a person- 
ated prophecy of the glory which awaits the sons 
of the resurrection. Jesus had now passed through 
the door, its transfiguration, its transformation, 
into the New Realm. He represents the citizen- 
ship of the celestial kingdom, a kingdom of 
which He is the Creator, and that heavenly citi- 
zenship to which Paul refers when he writes. 
“For our citizenship is in heaven, whence also we 
wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ ; who 
shall fashion new the body of our humiliation 
that it may be made like unto the body of His 
glory” (Phil. 3:20). 


214 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


And in that connection, as before noted, Paul 
goes forward to say for substance that this is 
Christ’s customary way of subjecting things to 
Himself,—creating them anew. ‘There is no 
room here for evolution. ‘There is nothing from 
which such a glorious thing can be evolved. “That 
new body is, like the old one, a creation of God. 
And why, of all things, should He make an excep- - 
tion of our vile, diseased, deformed, decrepit, 
unsightly, sin-sodden human frame? Why should 
that body forever hang round our necks like a 
murdered corpse to remind us of the slime pit 
from whence we shall have been rescued? ‘To 
embrace such doctrine, such a shuddering horror, 
as a principle of faith, is surely a terrible price to 
pay for being a materialist. 

We recall a story told of Brigham Young dur- 
ing his miracle-working days (?). One of his 
dupes had lost a leg in an accident and had re- 


quested that another be made to grow in its place. 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 215 


Brigham, having his eye upon Gentile doubters, 
replied that he could readily make another grow 
in its place, but reminded the applicant that if he 
should now do so he would, at the resurrection, 
have three legs instead of two. Mr. Young was 
not alone in recognizing that a physical resurrec- 
tion has its difficulties, absurdities, and limita- 
tions. How much better it is to listen to John 
and Paul and, most of all, to Him who could and 
did speak experimentally and intimately of heav- 


enly things. 


216 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


CHAPTER TEN 


““THE IMAGE OF THE HEAVENLY” 


“Tf a man die shall he live again?” Job but 
voiced a question as old as the human race. No 
people have yet been found that do not harbor 
the hope of some sort of prolonged existence. 
‘There have been here and there persons who have 
tried to flout the idea, have tried to reason it out 
of existence, but it remains. All the negations of 
unbelief leave the truth just as it was. ‘This 
common hope is thus intuitive, and is in fact a 
prophecy ineffaceably graven upon the human 
soul. It is a native thirst which even the uni- 
versal fact of death cannot quench. Life abhors 


oblivion. ‘This is because the living soul was in 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 217 


the beginning made in the image of a deathless 
God and that unbelief can satisfy that native 
thirst no more than can a vacuum appease hunger. 

Job’s question may be and is unconsciously 
asked in a hundred forms. What will I be? 
for the question is always personal and subjective. 
Where shall I spend the never ending cycles of 
duration? Or is it possible that the fountain of 
time itself may cease to flow? At what shall I 
be employed, or shall I simply have an impassive 
existence in some great Nirvana? Shall I have 
volition and liberty of selection as I do here? 
Will I be hampered by time, space, and material 
things as here? What means of, and most of 
all, what capacity for gratification and enjoyment 
shall I possess? Shall I have senses correspond- 
ing to those I now have, or shall I have many 
more, or finer? Will sweet be sweeter, beauty 
more beautiful and gladness more gladsome? 


Will memory continue to accumulate its records 


218 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


for all time, or shall I be able at will to blot 
out the disagreeable thing which I do not wish 
to retain in mind? Shall I have power to reason, 
or will I only feel? Will I meet and recognize 
those I loved upon earth, or shall I grieve with 
sorrow for those I do not find there? Will I be 
privileged to resume any of the pursuits, studies, 
or enjoyments that were cut short by death? 
Such questions as these no doubt have been. at the 
back of the mind of every one who has had the 
patience to follow our discourse. We regret that 
to many of these questions only speculative an- 
swers can be given. Many of, them, however, 
were answered when Jesus rose from the dead. 
Others were answered by Paul and still others 
are doubtless replied to by the Spirit-guided hopes 
of the Christian world. Will it, in the event, be 
according to our faith? Is it possible to hope for 
too much? 


But how far, even with the light of Divine 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 219 


Revelation to aid, can the human mind peer into 
the future world, or was it specifically intended 
that revelation should not definitely reveal,—to 
the end that (as Paul parenthetically hints and as 
many have contended), we might be compelled to 
walk by faith only? Why does not the Bible tell 
us plainly the location and character of the 
“place” to which Jesus went to prepare for His 
friends? What, indeed, did He mean by “place’”’? 
Is it located upon and confined to this planet, as 
some of our materialistic friends would have us 
believe, or does it at all involve, as necessary, the 
existence of physical areas of plain, river, and 
mountain? Do the physical conditions and things 
among which we now live hold any clue, analogy, 
or similitude of the heavenly world? for the 
going away and the promised return of Jesus 
certainly implies. a separating distance of some 
sort. Is that dividing space a physical distance, 


as between two countries or planets, measureable 


220 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


in miles and leagues, or is it in reality simply a 
separation of condition—a spacing into which 
space does not enter, like the immeasureable abyss 
between even a pebble and the oyster that lies 
beside it in the mire? 

With every advance of civilization, vaguely 
understood to bring us nearer to some as vaguely 
defined Utopia, human life becomes more and 
more multiplex and burdensome. ‘This goes on 
without end. What were mere accessories of com- 
fort or utility yesteryear are the prime necessities 
of this, and with the coming of each life becomes 
more strenuous until human advancement threat- 
ens to be smothered to death by its own trappings, 
dunnage and stress. One half of mankind lives 
upon the artificial wants of the rest. Socrates 
was content with a booth, a pot, a gourd, and a 
wooden spoon. Compare this with the modern 
doctor of philosophy or even with the furbish- 
ments of the pupils who sit at his feet. Yet all 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 221 


attempts to return to simpler modes of existence 
are resisted to the utmost. The Son of Man, 
though carrying forward the greatest educational 
undertaking of all time did not possess a cabin, a 
pillow, or a farthing. The birds and the foxes 
had more of the common physical accessories of 
life and comfort than He. Though He breathed 
the same air as did His disciples He lived His 
real life in an atmosphere above all these things. 
He had a “life” that was more than meat and a 
body that was more than physical raiment, even 
here where His physical body required to be fed 
and clothed. While talking to Nicodemus he 
referred to Himself as being even at that moment 
in heaven. But in his resurrection he threw off 
all earthly needs and even the very appearance of 
needing. He rose beyond them. In a word he 
became the example or illustration of that heav- 
enly form we are to bear. “Therefore, we have 


in Him a glimpse of that perfect life and state to 


222 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


which He opened the way. And from these 
glimpses we learn that we will not be burdened 
with a single one of the physical needs or limita- 
tions which belong to this earth. “That life will 
be in itself so intrinsically and so inherently com- 
plete, so self-sustaining, that it will be independ- 
ent of all conditions except the love of God which 
gives it being. 

That life to which the resurrection makes us 
heir will therefore be so perfect that the body in 
which it may be said to be housed will be an 
eternal component part of itself, and these will 
correspond in kind and substance. Its owner will 
not be conscious of it as a weighting hindrance. 
‘The joy of its possession will be as untrammelled, 
and as instinctive with that life, as are our un- 
conscious heart and lungs. In a word the body 
will fit the occupant for we cannot believe that 
that soul or life will be conditioned, as here, or 


its power or pleasures in any possible way cur- 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 223 


tailed to accommodate a house of flesh and bones, 
or of clay. Here “we groan” as Paul expresses 
it, “being burdened” like a snail which must 
carry everywhere its cumbering house of bone 
upon its back. Why should this continue, or 
rather is there a word of Scripture to warrant 
believing that it will continue? 

‘This general reply to the foregoing questions 
finds confirmation and is to a degree exemplified 
by what we read of human life before the fall. 
There is no hint that while they retained their 
innocence Adam and Eve had a single wearying 
want or need, even although these persons were 
the “earthly” whom Paul contrasts with the 
“heavenly.” Want came with the knowledge of 
physical things and experience of physical evil, 
and no evil, external or internal, can ever enter 
the Holy City. Until then they did not even 
know that they were naked. The future had no 


anxiety,—that Nemesis which is on the track of 


224 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


every physical being. ‘Their comfort, like that 
of the birds that sang to them, was a part of 
their existence. They did not mortgage the mor- 
row for the means of enjoying to-day. ‘The cur- 
rent of life flowed full and free in a straight 
channel because it was at perfect peace with 
everything which touched it. Yet the heavenly 
world will be an infinite advance even upon the 
Garden of Eden. It is remarkable that nowhere 
in the Scripture is the latter referred to as a 
symbol or simulation of that place which awaits 
the redeemed. 

Paul) ati.al pointe (Cor. 1-7 )atakesaupatoe 
discussion of the future life of the Christian and 
hints that at least some general characteristics 
may be known. He speaks of it as a “mystery”, 
a mystery that was foreordained to be such before 
the worlds were created, a mystery “hidden from 
the rulers of this world,” yet one that is now 


revealed through the Spirit. Lacking the Spirit 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 225 


it could not be revealed ;—and by way of showing 
how the future was sealed to even the greatest of 
the Old Testament Prophets, he gives us a rather 
free translation of a passage of Isaiah (64:4). 
To quote his translation :— 

“Things which eye saw not, and ear heard not, 
and which entered not into the heart of man, 


whatsoever things God prepared for them that 
love Him.” 


But let us note particularly that Paul follows 
this with a declaration whose force is not always 
recognized. ‘The old prophets had the Spirit but 
there were things yet hidden from them. Christ 
was not yet come, not raised, not glorified, and 
therefore the Spirit in His fulness was not yet 
given to men. As yet there was therefore no way 
of explaining, no way of illustrating or carrying 
to men an adequate concept of what the future 
world holds in store. ‘The gate was not yet set 


ajar. Even the power to see was not yet ac- 


226 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


quired. Men’s eyes were not yet opened. ‘The 
way into the holiest of all was not yet revealed. 
Isaiah knew and knew of the Old Testament 
Jehovah. In the year that King Uzziah died he 
saw the Lord upon His throne and beheld His 
glory. But that was the as yet unrisen, not the 
risen Christ—the Resurrected One. So Paul 


continues :— 


“But unto us God revealed them through the 


Spirit; for the Spirit searcheth the deep things of 
God.” 


He is here preparing us in advance for what 
he still later writes in the fifteenth chapter. 
Furthermore Paul believed that the Holy Spirit 
had come to Christ’s earthly followers to stay, to 
be their Guide, and that Christ’s parting promise 
of Spirit-guidance would be literally fulfilled as 
the years went by. Doubtless he remembered also 


that this particular promise was made while Jesus 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 227 


was discussing this very subject. (See John 14.). 

Is it therefore going too far, or wandering into 
unwarranted fields to suppose that in the collec- 
tive hopes and aspirations of the millions who 
have been baptized into or in the name of the 
Holy Spirit there may be read much that God 
would have us know? That Spirit is to-day brood- 
ing over the collective faith, hope, heart, endeavor 
and longing of the multitude of such as shall be 
saved. ‘True, faith cannot create, but it can sense 
and see what is otherwise unknowable. 

What then is the true conviction of the com- 
mon Christian belief in this matter? “The world 
is much larger than in Paul’s day, and the means 
of investigation and comparison of ideas have 
been multiplied a hundred fold. Science has not 
confined its explorations to the earth’s surface nor 
to the minerals beneath it, nor even to the planets 
above. It has been looking within. Psychology 


is a greater science then Geology or Astronomy, 


228 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


and while its findings have been mostly negative 
in character they are none the less valuable in the 
ultimate. 

‘This being so, have the combined investigations 
and experiences of men, Christian or Pagan, 
scientific or otherwise, located in any material 
thing, place or condition, an adequate reply to 
the prime hunger of the human spirit-life? In 
the whole field of research has anyone discovered 
or pretended to have discovered in material things 
an avenue toward any ultimate goal of human 
happiness that does not lead to a blind alley, 
or to a stone wall of defeat,—a vacant darkness? 
Every new generation, fired with fresh hopes has 
imagined palaces of untold material wealth, tem- 
ples of deathless fame, the grasp of limitless pow- 
er over men and things, bowers where every 
physical sense may revel in unrestrained delight, 
gardens walled against all want, disease and suf- 


fering, and perennial springs of unalloyed joy. 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 229 


And while the very fact that such hopes spring 
eternally in the human heart, proving the pres- 
ence of a universal thirst, their universal defeat 
all but proves that the spring for the quenching 
of that thirst does not exist and cannot exist in 
material things. King Solomon, after running 
the whole gamut of earth’s offerings wrote that 
“all is vanity,” and the collective experience of 
men from then until now may be summed up in 
that wise man’s words. Solomon died an experi- 
mental failure. At the very noontide of his ma- 
terial magnificence he was outshone by a flower- 
ing weed of the field. Ponce de Leon searched 
the wilds for the fabled fountain of perpetual 
youth, all to die at last from the mere scratch of 
a poisoned arrow. ‘There is no grotto of earth, 
no laboratory of science, and no branch of biology 
which has not been searched in vain for the elixir 
of physical life. It does not exist. 


Not that material things are in themselves an 


230 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


evil, not at all. They are serving a wonderful 
kindergarten purpose. “They are a foil, a back- 
ground, a contrast for bringing into relief the 
exceeding glory of an infinitely higher world. 
Yet there is no vital communion or connection 
between these two worlds. ‘The one cannot be 
adequately sensed or described in terms of the 
other. “These material things do not belong with 
the spiritual. They only clog, or at best amuse 
like the playthings of the nursery. 

In all change there is ultimately a steady 
progression from the lower to the higher, from 
the good to the better, from the lesser to the 
greater, from the imperfect to the perfect, from 
the unknown to the known, from the high to the 
higher, from the gross to the refined, from the 
“natural” to what has been erroneously deemed 
above nature: and, as regards mankind, taken by 
and large, the progress has been from the material 


to the spiritual. There is no other direction in 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 231 


which the human entity can grow, and if in any 
individual case it will not grow in that direction ° 
it inevitably shrivels and shrinks like a burned out 
lamp, like a fruit that has ripened into rottenness. 
The culture of the human physique stops at a 
limit soon reached. ‘That of the intellect breaks 
down, often with its own weight. Therefore the 
only part of man capable of unlimited growth, 
expansion, culture and happiness is the soul, the 
spirit. 

Paul recognizes this inherent order of advance- 
ment and in fact applies it directly to the subject 
under discussion. In I Cor. 15:42 we read :— 

“So also in the resurrection of the dead. It is 
sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; 
it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is 
sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is 
sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. 
So also it is written. The first man Adam be- 


came a living soul. The last Adam became a 


232 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


life-giving spirit. Howbeit that is not first which 
is spiritual, but that which is natural: then that 
which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, 
earthy; the second man is of heaven. As is the 
earthy (man, Adam), such also are they that are 
earthy; and as is the heavenly, such also are they 
that are heavenly. And as we have borne the 
image of the earthy we shall also bear the image 
of the heavenly. Now this I say, brethren, that 
flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of 
God; neither doth corruption inherit incorrup- 
tion.” 

There is no statement in Scripture more pro- 
found, or more deeply fraught with personal in- 
terest than that which Paul here makes. ‘We 
shall bear the image of the heavenly.” We can 
grasp only the fringe of the truth he here sets 
forth. It is too dazzling for human eyes to see 
clearly. ‘The expanse is too great, the magnifi- 
cence too much. And perhaps there is a good 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 233 


reason for this. If we had the ability to fully 
visualize his meaning we might be in a constant 
agony of discontent. Every pain and discomfort 
would be multiplied many fold in its endurance. 
Men would pray for death instead of for the 
prolongation of this life. Realizing that they 
cannot be at home in the body and +e present 
with the Lord as Paul writes, they could not but 
feel an unconscious contempt for that which bars 
them from entering at once upon their priceless 
and eternal inheritance. But we can now see 
only as through a glass darkly that which hope, 
faith, and love tell us we shall one day realize 
face to face. 

The body of the first Adam was made of clay. 
It was taken out of the dust. When it had served 
its purpose it returned to its native element. A 
spirit was breathed into him by his Maker, and 
he thus became ‘‘a living soul.” It was only 


through possession of that spirit that he became an 


234 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


image of God. Still, an image may be far from 
a perfect replica. Adan even before his fall was 
far from a perfect image. But at his regenera- 
tion man is not again made into a mere image of 
God but is born of Him; and at his resurrection 
‘he is not again given or continued in a body like 
that of Adam but in both body and spirit he is 
born anew. He is supplied with a body fit for 
God’s own child, a child of the Deathless Lord 
of Life. It is a body which Paul says (Romans 
8:29) was foreordained to be made like to the 
image of His Son. And the reason assigned by 
the great apostle is that Christ might be the first- 
born among many brethren. 

It is in the light of these latter assurances, and 
based upon them, that Paul rises to the very cli- 
max of confidence in the eternal love of God. 
Recognizing that God has done all this he asks, 
“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ ? 


Shall tribulation, or anguish, or persecution, or 


The Resurrection and Its Implications 235 


famine, or nakedness or peril or sword? . 
Nay, in all these things we are more than con- 
querors through Him that loved us. For I am 
persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, 
nor principalities, nor things present nor things to 
come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor any 
other creature shall be able to separate us from 
the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our 
Lord.” 

“But as for me I know that my Redeemer 
liveth, and at last He will stand upon the earth. 
And after my skin, even this body, is destroyed 
then, without my flesh, shall I see God: whom I, 
even I, shall see, on my side, and mine eyes shall 
behold, and not as a stranger.” (Job. 19:25 R.V.) 


THE END. 


236 The Resurrection and Its Implications 


Note (Page 160)—Mormonism already holds 
the balance of power eleven States of the Union. 
It has now four members in Congress. It claims 
to be the Kingdom of God. Its phenominal growth 
is due to its sanctimonious appeal to physical 
sensuality here and hereafter. It has ingeniously 
invented a theology to suit this theory, and yet 
appeal to Christians who already believe in a 
future physical heaven. ‘That belief makes Mor- 
monism plausible. 

On December 16, 1913, at Phoenix, Arizona, 
Joseph F. Smith, the present Living Oracle of 
Mormonism, said, as widely repeated in the 


papers :— 


“God is a being with body, parts and passions. 
His Son, Jesus Christ, grew and developed into 
manhood the same as you and I, as likewise did 
God His Father grow and develop to the Supreme 
Being he now is. God the Father was born of a 
woman. Adam, our earthly parent, was born of 
a woman (God’s wife), the same as you and I.” 

















bo ae 


i He ee 
yah 





| 


Il 


1 1012 01145 2028 | 


——— 
eens 
)/ SS 
[a 
fe icaceetes 

(6 arene 
= ee 
_ pieimeaer 2 
QE 
—_— SSS 
> eee 
oo 
5 eee 
Oo 


SS 
( =a 


AW 








